


Shadow in the Mirror

by eliddell



Series: Blood of Heaven and Earth 'verse [5]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Action, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Nation is a good doggie, Drama, Gen, Rufus can't make up his mind, Rufus is a mess, Turks in training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-10-27 01:09:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 28,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20751827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eliddell/pseuds/eliddell
Summary: After the events ofBlood of Heaven and Earth, Rufus has become a virtual hermit as he tries to deal with his emotions.  Then Tseng offers him an out of sorts.Neither of them expected it to have the results it did.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So yes, this is the long awaited "Rufus and the Turks thing". It takes place a couple of months after the main part of _Home is a State of Mind_, so we're into February of 0003 or so.
> 
> I think I forgot to mention until several chapters later that while several relatives of Rufus' are mentioned in this chapter, they're related on his mother's side (that is, they aren't Shinras).
> 
> **Disclaimer:** Final Fantasy VII belongs to Square-Enix or whatever they're calling themselves these days, not to me. The specific text of this fanfic falls under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license to the extent that this does not infringe on Square's rights.

**Tseng**

"He has me worried, yo." 

I tried not to sigh in exasperation as Reno ruined a perfectly good sentence once again by tacking an extra syllable onto the end. _I_ spoke the common tongue of Midgar better than he did, and it was my third language. 

"It isn't our place to interfere." Veld hadn't even been invited to this meeting, and yet he had known exactly when and where it was. He might be old for an active Turk—the only survivor of his generation, save Vincent Valentine—but no one would ever claim that Director Verdot wasn't skilled. 

"I . . . am somewhat concerned as well," I admitted. Beside me, Rude nodded. "I think we would agree that, of all of us, I know Rufus Shinra the best, and I feel that this behaviour is . . . abnormal, even given his circumstances." 

"I'm not sure what would _be_ normal in his circumstances," Veld said. "Not only was he kidnapped and experimented on by Hojo, but his mind was partly taken over by an alien entity. I can't think of any precedent for all of that." 

"I'm not certain that 'taken over' is the proper term, from what little he's said about it." Although I had been having a difficult time getting Rufus to say anything at all. Or do anything at all. Granted, he had a recently-healed surgical wound in his chest that might have been impeding his activities somewhat, and which he had used as an excuse not to attend the round of parties surrounding the midwinter holiday, but spending most of his time locked up in his apartment with only Dark Nation for company was clearly unhealthy. Often, when I visited, I would find him lying on his back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, with the guard hound curled up beside him. He was caring for himself—eating, washing, feeding his pet, and so on—in a somewhat desultory fashion, but that was all. His duties as president of Shinra, Inc. were being fulfilled by Vice-President Tuesti. Still. 

"You mean he ain't even talking to you? This is serious, yo." 

Veld frowned. "I must admit, I didn't realize it was quite that bad." 

"It _is_ that bad," Cissnei said, speaking up for the first time. "I've gotten more conversation out of _Rude_ over the last month than I've gotten out of Rufus. Something needs to be done." 

"Not by us." Veld's voice, however, wasn't as firm as usual. 

"He ain't got no one else, Boss-man." 

We all contemplated that, staring at the table. Reno was right; we all knew it. Rufus' parents were both dead now, and he had no other close associates. To myself and the other senior Turks of my generation, who had been his bodyguards for many years now, he was like a little brother. And even Veld would have to admit he was still a valuable asset to the company. 

"Therapy," Rude suggested, not being the sort of man who wasted words. 

"We'd have to screen the therapist," Veld said. 

"And Rufus would never agree to it," I added. 

That caused a general silence to take over the small conference room where we had parked ourselves. I pondered, tracing the woodgrain patterning the tabletop. With my eyes only, of course. Tseng of the Turks was not a man who fidgeted. 

" . . . I have an idea," I said, and explained. When I was done, Reno gave me a grin and a thumbs-up, Rude nodded, Cissnei shrugged, and Veld rubbed the bridge of his nose—all calculated responses, of course. 

"The only problem," Cissnei observed quietly, "is whether Rufus will go for it." 

"I think I can persuade him," I said, laying my hand on the folder I had brought along from my previous meeting as I turned to face Veld more directly. 

"Very well," the oldest Turk said, after looking down to the folder, then back up to my face. "You can make your attempt. I won't even put any limits on it—Rufus isn't as vital to the survival of the company as he once was. Try to convince him to make a will, though. He still controls a sizable fraction of the voting shares, and I would at least like to have some warning of where they might end up." 

"He has a will." I'd seen it. 

"So who gets the shares?" Cissnei asked. 

"Dark Nation," I admitted. Reno snickered. "If his pet should predecease him, they would be divided among everyone in this room except Veld." 

"You serious? Y'know that you've just declared Open Season on the puppydog, yo." 

I shook my head. "Do not even consider it." 

"After all, why would we want to do anything in the open when we have a perfectly good guard hound to hide behind?" Cissnei said . . . and then spoiled it with a giggle. 

"Reno, if you hurt Rufus' pet, I'll give you the job of pruning obsolete material from the archives," Veld said, and Reno gave him a horrified look. "Was that the only item on the agenda for this little meeting? If so, get back to work." 

Rude grabbed Reno by the shoulder and began steering the redhead out of the room. I picked up the folder I'd been resting my hand on, then slipped through the door in front of them and went to the elevator. 

The old executive residential floor was rather empty, truth be told. The door to Hojo's rooms was marked off with yellow crimescene tape. Inside, his belongings still waited for his designated heir to deal with. The man hadn't left so much as a bent gil coin to his son, and I suspected General Sephiroth preferred it that way. Palmer's, Heidegger's, and Lazard's apartments had long since been emptied out. The old President's quarters hadn't yet been emptied, but would be as soon as Rufus could focus on such things again. Since none of the new directors had chosen to live up here, and Reeve Tuesti had never been offered any of the apartments in the first place, Rufus and Scarlet were the only current inhabitants of the floor. 

I knocked on Rufus' door when I reached it. Waited. Knocked again. Reached into my pocket for the keycard that would let me into any room in any Shinra installation anywhere in the world, should security require it. Most of the other Turks' cards had a few limits on them, but being second-in-command gave me certain privileges. 

The door finally opened before I could slide the card into the lock. Just a crack, but that was enough. 

Rufus looked . . . not _terrible_, I suppose, but nor was he the polished young man to whom I was accustomed. There was a scruff of reddish beard along his jaw, and he wore only a pair of loose trousers. The surgical scar across his chest was well-healed, but I thought I could still detect a hint of redness around it. His eyes . . . were they slightly glassy? The mako glow in them made it difficult to tell. 

"Tseng," he said. 

"President Rufus," I replied, offering him the slightest of bows. "I have something I need to discuss with you. May I come in?" 

Rufus stepped back. He knew that if he refused me, I would voice no complaint . . . but I would also wait in the hallway as long as necessary. However, he didn't offer me a seat, as he might have done if he had been pleased with my presence. I took up a position beside Dark Nation as Rufus half-fell back onto the couch. The guard hound snuffled at my leg and gave me a doggy grin, her stubby tail drawing an arc across the carpet. The long, whippy spine that grew from between the animal's shoulders had been cut short when she'd tried to get between Rufus and a mutated Hojo. 

Like myself and her master, Dark Nation would bear the scars of that night for the rest of her life. 

"Kindly say whatever it is that you have to say, Tseng, and then depart. I have things to do." 

_I believe the ceiling will survive even if you fail to stare at it._ The words were tempting, but not what I needed here. "I just came from a meeting. There are . . . problems." 

"Don't beat around in the bush." Rufus wasn't meeting my eyes. That was . . . very odd. 

"You may have heard that there was an explosion in the mountains near Rocket Town a couple of days ago." That had been the previous meeting, admittedly. The one with Veld. But it had occurred to me that this particular ongoing Situation would be perfect for forcing _some_ kind of response from Rufus. 

Rufus nodded. "So there _was_ a cover-up. I thought there was something odd about those news segments. It wasn't an accident, then." 

"It wasn't an accident," I agreed. "However, that is not the problem." 

I opened the file I was carrying and took out a photo. Grainy and imperfect, it was nonetheless clear enough to make it possible to identify the subject as a red-haired man, photographed from an angle that suggested a security camera. He was carrying a plastic shopping bag. 

Rufus frowned. "Well, well, well. If it isn't Cousin Erik . . . or Cousin Thorvald. Whichever of the twins it is, I take it he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be and doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing." 

"The facility that was destroyed was experimenting with alcohol-fueled engines as a potential replacement for mako-packed batteries in rotary-wing aircraft," I explained. "The man in the photo identified himself as Erik Arnarson and used his relationship to you as leverage to get inside. He is almost certainly the one who set the bomb." 

"So Cousin Erik—or Cousin Thorvald posing as Cousin Erik—doesn't want us to have environmentally friendly helicopters? That makes no sense." 

I shrugged. We were missing pieces of the puzzle, that was clear. Sooner or later, we would find them and it would all come together. 

"The question is, what do you want _me_ to do about it?" Rufus said. 

"This isn't something we can take to the Board." Which was true. The old Board of Directors would have ordered both men killed as a precaution. The new Board was likely to be divided, with Veld and Scarlet preferring a kill order, most of the new members lacking the stomach for it, and Sephiroth difficult to predict. At best, it would end up being . . . messy, with Highwind swearing and Arcanol throwing small objects around the boardroom. "We need you to make a decision. Or Veld and I will have to make one in your name." 

"Tseng, I . . ." A long pause. "I can't," Rufus admitted, speaking through clenched teeth. As though the words were hurting him. Dark Nation whined softly, her tail stilling against the carpet. 

"Rufus. I want to help, but I can't do anything if you won't explain the problem." I watched him carefully as I spoke, alert to the least change in expression. I hadn't been able to get very much out of him since our return from the Northern Crater, but this time, maybe . . . 

"I can't explain it because I don't entirely understand it myself." Rufus ran a hand through his hair . . . and, realizing what he was doing, froze and slowly lowered it. "It's as though there are gaping holes inside my mind, but at the same time there's nothing actually _missing_ except my self-control and detachment. Maybe Shenlong took them with him. The Rufus Shinra that no one had ever seen bleed or cry is gone, and I don't know if I can ever find it in me to be him again. I don't know if I _want_ to. I know what the expeditious course of action would be here . . . and I can't order it, Tseng. I can't tell you to kill an innocent man, and I know only one of them was there that day. Or you would have mentioned it." 

He honestly looked sick to his stomach. He had one hand pressed to his chest now, right over the surgical scar. 

I hated seeing him like this. I had matured alongside Rufus, moving from rookie Turk to second-in-command as he moved from boy to man. He had always been so . . . intense. Like a small sun, shining brightly and drawing people into his orbit (and burning anyone who got too close without taking precautions, but that was the way of the world). Now, he seemed burned out, rendered down to embers and grey ash. 

I had to get him out of this apartment. I _would_ get him out of here, no matter what I had to do. 

"Do you have any objections to shooting the guilty one?" I asked. 

"No . . . but I'm not sure if the messed-up part of me will trust you if you claim one or the other is guilty. Veld will tell me whatever he considers expedient, and may order you to do the same." 

I hadn't expected such a perfect opening. "Then we will arrange for you to witness all stages of the investigation." 

"_How?_ I can't let anyone see me like this, Tseng. If anyone finds out that I've become weak . . . indecisive . . . _broken_, I'll lose what power base I have left." 

"What if the people seeing you didn't know you were Rufus Shinra?" 

"That's impossible. My face has been all over the papers and in hundreds of TV broadcasts. There might be some peasant in the most remote part of Wutai who wouldn't recognize me on sight, but I bet you'd have a hard time finding two of them." 

That was a bit of an exaggeration, I was sure, but . . . "I believe I have a way to mitigate that, if you are willing," I said. 

Rufus' eyes narrowed. "You knew. Before you even came here." 

"Not exactly. But I also didn't believe you could be simply malingering. So I arranged with Veld in the others in advance to offer you a way of leaving here incognito, if that was what you felt you needed." 

Rufus sighed softly, and the corners of his mouth quirked up. "You know me too well. Tell me what you have in mind." 

"As you know, we have just selected three new junior Turks," I said. "It would pose no difficulty to add a fourth. If we claimed that we had chosen the additional trainee as a body double for President Shinra—" 

"—no one would question why I looked like me," Rufus completed for me. "They would, however, question why I'm enhanced. I have enough mako in my system that my eyes glow quite obviously in dim light, no thanks to Hojo." 

I hadn't realized that, but I knew how to think on my feet. "Glasses with mako-dimming lenses. Which will make you look even less like Rufus Shinra." 

"True enough, I suppose. Just don't let Reno be the one to feed Dark Nation if I'm not able to make it back to my apartment. He thinks pretzels are appropriate dog food." 

"Indeed," I murmured. That had been easier than I had expected. Perhaps Rufus had also been looking for some kind of out. 

Dark Nation whined and rose from her sitting position beside me. She gave a soft _whuff_ as she nuzzled Rufus' elbow, then licked her master's hand. Rufus absently ruffled the guard hound's ears without even looking down. 

"Find me those glasses," Rufus said, and I nodded. 

Step one accomplished. Now we only had to find some way of rebuilding Rufus' confidence.


	2. Chapter 2

**Rufus**

_I don't understand why in hell I agreed to this._

It was seven o'clock on a Thursday morning, and I was standing at attention in the lounge on the Turk floor. Wearing a blue suit and a pair of glasses with thick black plastic rims, and with my hair dyed to almost match Genesis Rhapsodos'. 

To my left was a short, blonde woman who couldn't be more than sixteen. She wasn't a pushover, though. You don't get into the Turks, even as a probational junior member, by being soft, and this young woman had a firm mouth and a straight spine. Beyond her were two others, men a bit younger than myself, one big and muscular while the other was small and wiry. The big guy was giving me a contemptuous sidelong glance. 

To my right was a wall. At least it wasn't likely to have any opinions of me. 

In front of me, the senior Turks all stood in a line, from left to right in order in which they'd joined up: Tseng, Rude, Reno, Cissnei. Veld lurked in the background, leaning against a wall. Vincent Valentine, the SOLDIER-Turk, was nowhere to be seen, perhaps because Veld didn't want to complicate things by introducing his ex-partner and his strange history before the new trainees had had time to settle in. 

It all felt rather strange. It would have felt strange even without the nagging sensation that there was a hole inside my head, which I'd had ever since they'd cut the Shenlong materia out of me. It had taken a piece of me along with it. Instead of, say, a missing tooth, I had missing _thoughts_. I'd had an interlinked web inside me of all Shenlong's memories, the knowledge and multi-thousand-year lifetime of an Immortalis, but now anything that hadn't passed through my conscious mind was just . . . gone. And I'd lost the skills as well. I could no longer cast spells without materia, take on Shenlong's true form, speak to the Lifestream, or call a bonded weapon, and my strength and healing factor had dropped to around the level expected of a new SOLDIER Third. 

I felt naked. Worse than that, I felt _diminished_. Alone in my apartment, after I'd been released from the hospital, I'd raged over that until I'd almost burst my stitches. I hated feeling small. It was the sensation of being ignored as my father spoke to other adults over my head—_run along and play, Rufus. Didn't your tutors assign you enough work, Rufus?_ Anything to keep from engaging with me. From making me feel that I was _wanted_. The old buzzard had kept more careful track of Sephiroth's growth and educational milestones than he had of mine, and for a long time I had blamed that on Sephiroth himself, even though intellectually I knew it hadn't been his fault. 

I had begun to crave power while I was still quite young. Power would let me show the old man up for the fool he was. And now he was dead, and I was hollow, and what had the point really been? 

"I am Tseng, second-in-command of the Turks, and I would say 'welcome to the Department of Administrative Research', but there is nothing welcoming about this place," Tseng said abruptly. "If you have reached this point, you have some knowledge of what we do. The Turks are Shinra's hidden hand. We do all the things that SOLDIERs cannot do—because they are too easily noticed, because it would bring bad publicity, or because they would refuse. We are the keepers of Shinra's reputation, and we eradicate any and all stains on the company's name . . . unless ordered to do otherwise. If you were hoping to be a hero, or even for an honourable death, you are very much in the wrong place. If you were hoping for family or children, you are in the wrong place. It has been proven repeatedly that, given the work we do, unsanctioned ties are a danger to us and must be eradicated." Tseng very carefully didn't look at Veld. I wondered if the other trainees were aware of that. 

There was a moment's silence as all that was allowed to sink in. Then Reno flashed us all a smile. 

"So now that Tseng's scared the pants off you, let me tell you about the good parts, yo. If you like danger, but _don't_ like the routine shit that the SOLDIERs have to put up with, or aren't eligible for SOLDIER, then you _are_ in the right place. Same thing if you like investigations and police work, but you don't want to have to put in years as a grunt on street patrol before you can get to the good stuff. Not everything we do is corporate coverup crap—we take down drug lords and weapons smugglers too, when the regular police can't handle 'em. We might not be big on outside ties, but we look after our own. And the pay's pretty damned good." 

Another moment's silence. I gave the real baby Turks a sidelong glance of my own, and discovered that the girl, in particular, had a complex expression on her face. The big guy was grinning, and the small one had an expression of boredom that I could tell was feigned. 

Rude, Reno, and Cissnei all took a single step backwards. That allowed Tseng to prowl down the line of new recruits. He stopped in front of the little guy. 

"Codename Shiv," he said. "Why are you here?" 

"'Cause it beats knifing a guy over a baggie of moon dust in the alley behind the Honeybee," the little guy drawled. "If I'm gonna die early anyway, I might as well collect some of those sweet paychecks first, y'know?" 

_That one is going to be a handful_, I thought. 

Tseng moved onto the big guy. "Codename Fists, I believe. You applied for SOLDIER, originally." 

"And then found out I was allergic to mako," the big guy said in a surprisingly high-pitched voice. "But I like to fight." 

Another thoughtful stare from Tseng before he moved on to the girl. "Codename . . . Elena," he said. "You left the military academy before graduating to join us, despite having some of the highest marks they had ever seen. Why?" 

"Because this is what I want to do, sir." I hadn't noticed before, but she was standing at parade rest, shoulders square and chin up. "I always wanted to be a Turk, not an infantry officer." 

"Because of your sister?" Tseng asked. 

"Being able to talk with her again about something other than the weather and my grades will be a nice bonus, but no. I'm doing this for me." 

Sister . . . ? Not Cissnei—not only was she an orphan, but they looked nothing alike. One of the established juniors, then. Gun, maybe? I should have been paying more attention to the dossiers of the incoming trainees. 

Tseng considered Elena for a moment more, then moved on to stop in front of me. "Codename Mirror. I know why you're here, but do you?" 

"Someone recommended this as the best use of my time," I said evenly, but I adjusted my expression and body language to be subtly challenging. All stupid theatre, of course. It didn't matter. Tseng would have agreed that it didn't matter. 

We both knew our parts in this public farce. 

Tseng returned to his place in the line of senior Turks. "Each of you will be assigned a mentor and a training schedule. Mirror, due to your special assignment, I will be mentoring you myself. Elena, your mentor will be Cissnei here." He gestured at the female Turk, who smiled and wiggled her fingers in greeting. "Shiv, your mentor is Rod—you'll find him in the private gym at the other end of the floor. Fists, you will be mentored by Katana once he returns from his current job. In the meanwhile, you will work with Two Guns, whom you will find in the lounge. Schedules will be sent to your PHSs. That will be all for now." 

"Yes, sir," Elena said firmly. The two lines broke up, and Veld faded away into the inner offices, leaving me and Tseng standing not quite opposite each other. 

"Be at the gym in fifteen minutes," Tseng said to me, and then turned away towards the inner offices. 

I could have stood there waiting for a quarter of an hour, or even followed him inside, but instead I went to the lounge. Unlike the senior Turks, the juniors had no idea who I really was, and I was going to need to work with them for at least the next few weeks in my persona as "Mirror". Best to make their acquaintance now, and establish myself in their minds as a person separate from "Rufus Shinra". 

To my surprise, Elena offered me a tentative smile as I came to a stop beside her. I gave her a cordial nod. Fists snorted and pointedly turned his back to me. 

"So," Elena said. "Mirror? That's a weird codename. And you've got a special assignment?" 

I shrugged. "I'm Rufus Shinra's body double." 

"Seriously?" She frowned and looked me over. "Yeah, I could maybe see that. You're the right height and build, anyway, and the right kind of disguise stuff could probably fix you up well enough for public appearances. It isn't as though you have to fool his girlfriend or anything." 

"Just his guard hound," Cissnei said, and giggled. 

"I don't expect to fool the guard hound," I said evenly. "But Rufus rarely takes Dark Nation with him to make public appearances." 

Fists snickered and turned back toward us. "Dark Nation, huh? Sounds kind of ominous." 

"You didn't think he would name his pet 'Cuddles', did you?" I asked, arching an eyebrow, and Fists started to laugh. 

"I actually like you," the big SOLDIER-wannabe said. "Didn't think I would, when I saw you standing there looking like you had a stick up your ass—or is that all part of the 'Rufus Shinra' act?" 

I smirked. "You'll never know." 

"Damn, you really have it down pat, don't you?" 

"Screwing up could mean his life—or President Rufus'. There are some things we don't take seriously around here, but the job isn't one of them," Cissnei said. "Speaking of which, don't you boys have places you need to be?" 

"In a couple of minutes," I said—it would take me five to get to the private Turk gym, unless I was attacked by the Wutainese Resistance along the way. 

"Two Guns just told me to tag along with Mirror and Elena for now," Fists said. "Guess he thinks he's got more important things to do than watch over a newb." 

"That does sound like him," Cissnei admitted. "For now, we'll all join Rod and Shiv at the gym. I know you were tested in hand-to-hand fighting before you were accepted, but that was only to make sure you met a minimum standard. We need a more comprehensive evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses. Then we'll go to the shooting range." 

I resigned myself to being battered and bruised. I'd been trained in martial arts, mostly by Tseng, but I knew I had only average aptitude and didn't practice nearly enough (because if there's one thing I hate, it's being _average_). Enhancement did give me enough of an edge that I might be on the same level as the real Turk recruits, but I somehow doubted that I was _better_ than them. My chance to shine would be at the firing range, not the gym. 

There were three kinds of gyms in the Shinra Tower—four, if you counted the ones used by the regular army detachment housed below Plate-level. Above-Plate, there were the executive gym with its stationary bicycles and rowing machines that could be used for light exercise by the privileged class, the SOLDIER gyms and practice rooms with their special reinforced equipment . . . and this space, which was reserved for the Turks. 

It didn't look like much at first glance. The walls were undecorated white, the space brightly lit. There were a couple of treadmills (one with handcuffs dangling from its rails), and a single weight machine that was used primarily by Rude. Nearby, a couple of punching bags hung. Other than that, it was empty except for the stack of mats along one wall. Well, and the spectacle in the middle where Rod was beating up on Shiv. 

It had probably started as a test of the younger man's abilities, since they'd both taken the time to tape their knuckles to stop the skin from splitting. I wouldn't have been at all surprised to discover that Shiv had gotten cocky. He wasn't anymore, with his nose bleeding and one eye beginning to swell shut. Still, he kept his fists raised and his body oriented towards Rod, who was unscathed. 

Unfortunately for Shiv, he also glanced toward us as we approached, and Rod made use of that opportunity to hook his ankle and take him down. 

"You ain't bad, but a rabid whole eater would have more discipline," Rod said. "There's a time and place to go wild, but this ain't it. Anyway, we'll work on that. Get up." 

Shiv's eyes darkened. "Son of a—" 

"They need the space," Rod said, nodding toward us. "Listen, Shiv. This is the Turks, not that kindergarten you were messing around with in the Slums. We'll support you, but we ain't gonna coddle you." Rod's Slums accent was lighter than Reno's, but I'd always suspected that Reno thickened his up on purpose to make himself look less bright than he actually was. A lot of people underestimated Reno, and he liked it that way. 

Shiv had a sneer on his face as he rose to his feet. He took his time straightening his jacket and slapping the dust off his trousers, then moved away from the middle of the room. It was so pathetic as a display of you-don't-own-me that I barely stopped myself from shaking my head. 

"Elena," Cissnei said as she stepped forward, onto the mats that had just barely enough give to turn a bone-breaking throw into a bruising, punishing one. She beckoned the other girl. "I believe you've won several awards for martial arts. I'd like to see how good you actually are." For the first time that morning, Cissnei smiled her real smile, the one that had an edge to it. 

"Just like this?" the blonde asked, gesturing down at her clothes. 

"You can put on some gloves or tape up your knuckles if you like, but you'll usually be in uniform when you fight, so from now on, you're going to practice in it too. Don't worry—the suits are tailored with that in mind." 

Elena took a pair of lightly padded gloves out of her pocket and put them on—either someone had warned her about what was going to happen before she'd arrived this morning, or she'd made her own inferences. Cissnei had a pair of similar gloves, but more battered and with hot pink trim. She beckoned to Elena again, and the blonde stepped forward. 

They didn't bother with the formalities of a match. Cissnei stepped forward, Elena moved to meet her, and they began an exchange so quick that it was difficult for me to follow the individual moves. It ended with Elena bent over and holding her stomach, but still on her feet and glaring defiantly. 

"_Very_ good," Cissnei said. "The only mistake you made was that you kept pulling some of your more aggressive blows, instead of hitting me full-force. That's a common flaw in people who fight for sport or in competition, rather than to kill. We'll train you out of it. Fists, your turn." 

Fists was clearly a boxer by inclination. He could hit hard enough, but he wasn't used to dealing with an opponent who grabbed his wrists and used them as handles to pull or throw him rather than hitting back, and he had no idea what to do with his feet besides balancing on them. He was fairly durable and not completely stupid, though, since he got up after the first couple of throws and started blocking open-handed grabs as he should have been doing from the beginning. 

"Enough," Cissnei said at length. "I'll see if I can convince Rude to give you a few lessons, since he's more of a brute-force fighter than I am. You can take a lot of punishment, which is good, but you're not used to people using different styles, which is bad. Mirror, you're up." 

I'd bought new gloves the same colour as my suit for the occasion. They felt a bit odd as I pulled them on. Perhaps it really had been too long since I'd done anything like this. I settled into my stance, watching Cissnei through narrowed eyes. 

As I'd expected, only the mako Hojo had tried to pickle me in stopped the fight from being utterly humiliating. I had more mass and more strength and my speed was equal to Cissnei's, but she had better reflexes by a couple of orders of magnitude. I had to _think_ about what I needed to be doing, and that was deadly in a fight. 

I ended up on my knees, wheezing from a blow to the solar plexus and glaring up at Cissnei. Never mind that I'd deserved to be hit—I wasn't used to being handled so roughly. Hojo . . . had been a different kind of rough. 

"You've been taught how to fight, but you're badly out of practice," Cissnei said. "You should have started training again the moment you were out of the hospital." 

"I was too busy making friends with Dark Nation," I wheezed. _Cissnei, I am going to get you for this._ For instance, I could put her on Hojo-lab-scrubbing duty, which was currently Reno and Rude's problem. 

Cissnei giggled. "I suppose you could always have the big, bad guard hound bite anyone who looks at you funny." 

"That isn't what I'm here for." Perhaps I could have stopped the words from slipping out . . . but I didn't want to. 

I was still angry at myself for what had happened the night Hojo had taken me. Not because Tseng or Dark Nation had been hurt—neither of those things exactly filled me with joy, but to my mind, I was the one person less expendable than they were. (_Really, I am,_ I told the broken fragments of Shenlong that were disagreeing.) No, I was angry because I'd _failed_. If I'd run . . . if I'd been armed and able to squeeze a shot off . . . but the best I'd been able to do was hide. I shouldn't have been so weak, and the knowledge filled me with incandescent fury, burning away the haze I'd been moving through since my return from the Northern Crater. 

Next time someone came at me, I intended to be ready.


	3. Chapter 3

**Elena**

I'd had this image in my mind of what my first day as a Turk would be like. 

I'd had it all wrong. 

For starters, I'd imagined myself as the only new Turk to arrive on that day. Instead, I was the shortest person and only woman in a group of four. And of those, one had the same under-Plate accent I'd spent so long training out of my own speech, one had more muscles than brains and looked at me like a piece of meat even though I was a bit on the skinny side, and the third . . . well, okay, I wasn't sure what Mirror was. My instincts told me that something about him wasn't quite right. Currently my best guess was that he'd failed to meet the minimum standards required of a Turk, and then gotten in anyway because he looked like Rufus Shinra. Still, he was better than either of the other two, and if I got stuck with one of these jokers as a partner, I hoped it was him. 

My perfect, imagined day had also begun with my sister offering to mentor me. Not that there was anything _wrong_ with Cissnei—if Sis hadn't been an option, I would have been _overjoyed_ to be given a senior Turk as a mentor. 

Finally, my imagined day had had Sis congratulating me, but she was on a mission to Junon and wouldn't be back until tomorrow. So much for that. 

Once Cissnei was done working Mirror over (and I agreed with her assessment: he'd been trained somewhere along the line, in one of the Wutainese styles, but he was thinking too much as he fought because his reflexes were shit) and the poor fool could breathe again, we were taken to a weapons locker and told to choose whatever firearm we liked. 

I immediately picked up a Quicksilver XR, two extra clips, and a box of 9mm. It was a nice, accurate pistol, and I'd used one before and was used to the recoil. Shiv and Fists both grabbed the biggest pistols they could find, a pair of Desert Zus that were mostly good for blowing craters in things at close range. Actually, Fists reached for a rocket launcher first, but Cissnei grabbed his hand and shook her head. I had a feeling neither of those two knew much about guns. Neither of them took any ammunition, either. 

Mirror gave both pistols and rocket launchers a pass, and took a sawed-off Randall shotgun. He seemed to have at least some idea of what he was doing, because he broke it open for a quick check, and picked up a couple of different kinds of shells. 

"You might want to take some bullets to use with your choice, if you haven't already," Cissnei said with a little-girl smile that I'd already figured out was a put-on job. 

Shiv at least seemed to know what kind of cartridges the Desert Zu took, although his lips moved as he read the labels on the boxes. Fists waited until Shiv was done, and chose the same kind of box . . . which I guess at least meant he wasn't completely stupid. 

Cissnei locked the rest of the guns back up (and come to think of it, why had there even been a rocket launcher in there? It wasn't a very Turk-like weapon. Pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles, and even grenades made a certain amount of sense, but a rocket launcher is for wars . . . well, and maybe for taking down helicopters and the like). We followed her to the firing range, which involved a trip downward in an elevator with unmarked buttons. 

When we got off, I couldn't figure out where we were at first. I mean, the Shinra building is big, but it isn't big enough to provide a vista that stretched off into the distance that way. 

"We're inside the Plate," Mirror said suddenly. I guess he must have seen me looking around, and well, it _did_ make sense, but . . . 

"How do you know?" I asked. 

"Tseng brought me here once before. He told me then." 

Truth? Lie? I wasn't sure. I'd been working on reading people, since I knew it was a useful skill for a Turk, but Mirror was . . . difficult that way. His smug Rufus-Shinra smirk covered up and distorted what was underneath. 

He was a puzzle. Good thing I liked that kind of puzzle. I knew the Turks got a lot of them. 

He was also a good shot. I mean, shotguns aren't my thing, but I know you have to be pretty good to hit anything at more than a certain distance with them, even if you're using solid slugs instead of buckshot. They're lethal at close range, though—a lot nastier than a pistol—and the smirk never left Mirror's face as he systematically shredded his targets. 

Of the other two, Shiv did that dumb thing stupid people think looks cool because they've seen it in the movies, where you hold the gun sideways. You can't aim properly that way, so it wasn't a surprise when he missed most of his targets. Fists was even worse, to the point that I doubted he'd ever had much to do with guns before. 

"Enough," Tseng said from behind us as Fists fumblingly finished emptying his second clip. I jumped a bit, because I hadn't heard him approaching, but I didn't turn around. Neither did Mirror. Shiv, on the other hand, was craning his neck around, but Cissnei shifted from foot to foot to keep herself directly in his line of sight, a mischievous little smile playing across her face. "What do you think?" Tseng added. 

"The two with the Desert Zus will have to be retrained from the beginning," said a deep, rough voice. "The other two are adequate with their chosen weapons." 

I couldn't help it. I turned around. 

_Three_ people had managed to sneak up on me, which had to be a first. I recognized Tseng, of course, and Director Verdot, although he hadn't bothered to introduce himself yet. The third man I didn't know, and I gave him a quick once-over. Mid-twentyish, probably. Pale, handsome face, set and expressionless, with eyes that glowed balefully red. He wore a modified SOLDIER First Class uniform with different trousers, spiky brass fittings over the toes of his boots, one full glove on his left hand, and a fingerless one on his right. He didn't have a sword, but strapped to his leg was the biggest handgun I had ever seen. 

"How would _you_ know?" Shiv asked, having finally gotten a look past Cissnei. 

"Because he's the best shot in Shinra," Tseng said blandly. "Director Verdot, Soldier Valentine, I apologize for the unimpressive nature of our current trainees." He gave the other two men a very Wutainese bow. 

"The girl has potential," Valentine said, not exactly repeating himself . . . but close enough. "And the one with the glasses. The other two have too much ego." 

Fists looked annoyed. Shiv . . . looked more than that. Like he wanted to take a swing at Valentine, who stared back at him blandly. 

Veld chuckled. "Enjoying getting to play the bad cop, Vincent?" 

"My current job has fewer opportunities for . . . subtle interaction," Valentine said, shrugging. 

Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I hadn't thought the Turks normally consulted outsiders about their prospective members. It could all have been a put-on job, of course—Turk disguised as a SOLDIER—but now that I thought about it, I was pretty certain that I'd heard of Valentine before. He was the shadowy SOLDIER First without any special rank who had shot straight up from Third Class during the monster troubles that had started a few months ago. It was funny I hadn't heard more about him, actually, given that he had to be the only SOLDIER using a gun as his primary weapon. 

Best marksman in Shinra . . . friendly with Veld . . . _my current job_ . . . and the Turks were consulting him about the aptitudes of new recruits . . . 

"You were a Turk," I blurted out, and everyone turned to look at me. "Before you joined SOLDIER," I added, looking straight at Valentine. "Weren't you?" 

"Very good," Veld said approvingly. "Vincent used to be my partner. Although he's currently designated as SOLDIER's liaison with Administrative Research, his codename—Sniper—remains active, and for your purposes, he is still considered a senior member of our department." 

I blinked. _Veld's_ partner? But . . . "Aren't you too young?" 

"I ran afoul of the former head of the Science Department and ended up spending twenty years in stasis," Valentine said. "The story would fit in with the rest of the cautionary tales about Turks who get too caught up in their targets that you're going to be hearing over the next few months." 

Mirror snorted, then smirked again as he locked his gaze with Valentine's. They didn't say anything to each other, but the staring contest was intense. Then Valentine's eyes flashed gold, and there was a pressure in the air for a second or two before they darkened to red again and he turned away. 

I wondered what that meant. It was too weird to just be a trick of the light. And there had been a moment there when, for no obvious reason, I'd felt like we were all going to die. Plus, Mirror had a strange expression on his face now, as he watched Veld and Valentine leave. 

. . . I'd just realized that both men's names, first _and_ last, all started with the letter "V". When I thought about it, that was really weird too, even if they'd been assigned as partners because of alphabetical order or something. 

"Your assessment?" Tseng was saying to Cissnei. 

"Elena's good, but needs to work on not saying whatever comes into her head without thinking about it first. Mirror needs some time in the gym—he must have been slacking off even before his injuries, although his marksmanship is still good enough. About the other two, I agree with Vincent—they're cocky and undertrained." 

"Mmm," was all Tseng said in reply, while I was trying to figure out whether to be pleased or offended. Okay, so I did have a habit of blurting things out, and I knew it was stupid. She didn't have to be so blunt about it, though. "I will have the boys' schedules adjusted accordingly. For now, we should feed them. This time, at least. Mirror, come with me." 

Mirror stuck the shotgun through his belt and followed Tseng back into Shinra Tower proper. They didn't join us for lunch, or for the first hour of concentrated lessons, about how the political power inside Shinra was _really_ portioned out. There were a certain number of people we had to be able to recognize on sight, and not all of them were as obvious as, say, General Sephiroth. I couldn't recall that I had ever even _seen_ a picture of Admiral Arcanol before, for instance. And Rufus Shinra looked a lot more like Mirror than I'd thought he did, at least from certain angles. 

Mirror did rejoin us for the hands-on class on "digital information management"—hacking, in other words. And the one on explosives. He listened seriously and retained information, while Fists barely seemed to know how to turn a computer on and Shiv rolled his eyes and made fun of the senior Turks acting as instructors behind their backs until Reno caught him at it, smirked, and took a grenade from his pocket. 

"You want me to pull the pin and shove this up your ass, yo?" he asked Shiv in his exaggerated Slums accent. 

"You ain't gonna do that," Shiv replied. 

Reno twirled the grenade. "Wanna make a bet?" 

"He'll do it if you keep pushing," Mirror said, leaning back in his seat. "A new Turk who won't take orders is useless to the department." 

That was another thing about Mirror: he always talked as though he'd been a Turk for a while. Well, Cissnei had mentioned that he'd been in the hospital fairly recently. Maybe he'd done some of the purely-rote-memorization training there, even if the physical stuff had been beyond him. That would explain why he hadn't had to join the rest of us for the faces-of-Shinra bit. 

I wondered what he had been doing while he and Tseng had been off alone. Special how-to-be-a-better-Rufus-Shinra training? Or maybe he'd been playing with Dark Nation? 

_Or just having lunch,_ I told myself. _Don't be silly._

Still, there did seem to be something special between him and Tseng. Every so often, the two of them would just exchange one of these _looks_. I don't mean it was a sexually charged exchange or anything like that. Something more subtle. Like they'd known each other for a long time. 

Which wasn't possible. Was it?


	4. Chapter 4

**Rufus**

"Elena's almost too sharp," I said, dropping into the guest chair in Veld's office. "I'm not sure how long hair dye and these ugly glasses are going to fool her." 

"I have additional measures planned if necessary," Tseng said. He was near the door, standing at something like parade rest, with his hands clasped behind his back. As usual, his grooming was impeccable . . . _why am I even noticing that?_

"I'll keep it in mind, but I don't think we're at the point of needing to implement anything additional yet," I said, and turned to Veld. "Since the two of you wanted to talk to me, I take it there have been developments of some sort in the bombing case." 

"A few things," Veld said, spreading several folders across his desk. The old Turk was very fond of his paper. Tseng only printed documents out when he needed them to make a point; Veld printed _everything_, because he didn't trust the computer system to be secure. He even had a few documents that had never touched the computer, existing only in the form of sheets of lined paper covered with his crabbed handwriting and stored in the filing cabinet at the back of the room. The booby traps on the filing cabinet itself were legendary. Reno had tried to break into it a dozen times and been caught in a different way each time. He'd given up after something in the cabinet had sprayed him with an ink that had left his face blotchy bright pink for two weeks. It had clashed horribly with his hair, although I doubt he'd noticed. 

Other would-be spies hadn't been so lucky. A Wutainese ninja who had somehow snuck onto the Turk floor during the chaos of the night Hojo had killed my father had been found dead beside the filing cabinet hours later, without any marks to show how he had died. Veld, when asked about it, had only smiled smugly. 

"Mr. President, before we begin, I would like to ask: have you been in contact with your cousins at all?" 

I shook my head. "Not in many years. The last time I saw anyone from that side of the family in person was at my mother's funeral. Since then, none of them have made any effort to communicate. I didn't even find out that my uncle had died until months after the fact. As for me reaching out to them, you would have heard about it, because the first thing I would have needed to do was ask you to find out how to contact them for me." It was a bit odd, now that I thought about it, that my mother hadn't left me any information at all on how to get in touch with her brother or his sons, but if there had been a reason why, she'd taken it to the grave with her. 

"Hmm." Veld opened one of his folders and began spreading out papers. "We've found a possible motive for your cousin's actions. The problem is that it applies equally to both of them." 

I raised my eyebrows. "Oh?" 

"It's financial," Veld explained. "At the time of your uncle's death, he owned a controlling interest in Highlands Construction, Inc. The shares were split between his heirs, leaving them with roughly forty percent of the company each." 

"And Highlands was the company that held the initial site preparation and foundation excavation contracts for the Wutai reactor." Which had been postponed by my father and would probably never have been built even if he had lived, but my cousins didn't know that. 

Veld nodded. "With Shinra moving away from mako power, those contracts have been officially canceled. And there was no penalty clause for early withdrawal. Highlands just lost half a billion gil in potential income." 

"Their profit as shareholders would have been at most a few million from that," I said. "But I suppose people have done stupid things for much less." 

"There are parts of the slums where men will knife each other over a ten-gil coin," Tseng observed. I snorted . . . but softly. _Money, power, love, and sex,_ he'd told me once. _Those are the things that drive most people. Some have more than one weak point. But if you work through those four, you can almost always find somewhere to twist the knife._

"What else?" I asked Veld. 

This time, he just handed me a folder. I barely kept myself from rolling my eyes as I opened it and scanned the handful of photos and reports it contained. 

There had been a second bomb, at the new solar panel factory. Pure luck, in the form of a bad solder joint, had caused it to fail to explode. There was no security footage of either of my cousins this time, but a few people remembered a man matching their description visiting the plant. 

"It's clear that their target is the new energy initiatives," I said, dropping the folder back on the desk. "I assume you've already made a list." 

"Naturally," Tseng said. "However, that leaves eight likely locations for an attack." 

"We can't place more than one or two of our own at each location," Veld added, "and if they broaden the scope of their targets . . ." 

And he wanted me to make a decision. I turned my head to look at Tseng, who stared back at me with inscrutable dark eyes. Belatedly, I realized they'd positioned themselves so that it was difficult for me to see them both at the same time. They were trying to get an unguarded reaction from me. 

Sometimes it was a bit annoying when the people you were closest to were all sneaky bastards. Although I did at least have Dark Nation. If you felt a need for a bit of unreserved love, getting it from a pet was _safe_. Dark Nation would never betray me. She didn't even understand what betrayal was. 

Tseng, on the other hand . . . I was still trying to sort out my feelings about Tseng. He'd been a big brother to me since I was an unhappy ten-year-old trying to feel my way through a life where my mother was dead and there was no one else for me to rely on. But I'd found myself clinging so strongly to the memory of him while I'd been under Hojo's thumb that it almost made me wonder as though there wasn't something else going on. I was straight, though. Mostly. I'd experimented a bit, like so many other wealthy young man in what Tseng dryly called my _circle_, and, well, that one night with Reno had been _fun_. I thought that was more because of Reno specifically than because I'd been with another man, though. The red-headed Turk had a reputation for giving his partners a good time in bed, and being willing to break it off in the morning with no hard feelings. It was why he had several friends-with-benefits here at the Tower. 

Tseng wouldn't be fun. _Passionate_, maybe, but not _fun_. He was too serious for that. If he chose someone, he would have a hard time letting go. Hell, I had a feeling there was still a bit of him that longed for Aerith Gainsborough, although she had made her choice clear. The younger Rufus, before Hojo, wouldn't have wanted someone as overly protective as Tseng in his bed. But now . . . now I wasn't sure. There was something in me that ached for that kind of companionship—that _needed_ to regain what Shenlong had once shared with his partner Susano-o. Friends, brothers in arms, sometimes lovers, and always, _always_ together. 

The brief period during which I'd shared my mind with Shenlong had left me a stranger inside my own head. It was driving me insane. Or perhaps I was mad already. 

I forced myself back to the here-and-now with a tiny, bitter smile. 

"Have you figured out where to find my dear cousins?" I asked. 

Veld shrugged. "Thorvald has a house in Rocket Town, and a wife and three step-children. Erik we're still trying to trace. Apparently he was a pseudo-beach-bum in Costa for a while, and he has an apartment in Midgar that he doesn't live in, but we haven't been able to figure out exactly where he _does_ live." 

And we had to pick them both up at once, or risk having the one we needed to catch slip away. 

"Assign one Turk and a bomb squad—we should have enough of them—to each of the most likely targets," I said at last. "Make sure they don't make themselves too obvious. Everyone else is to keep looking for Erik. I shouldn't have to tell you how to do the most basic parts of your job," I added sharply. "After all, I'm only a probational junior Turk." 

Veld snorted. Tseng, when I turned slightly in my chair to get a real look at him, just blinked at me, dark eyes fathomless. 

"Understood, Mr. President," Veld said. "Unless you have something you wish to bring to our attention, I think we can adjourn this meeting." 

I couldn't identify anything _specific_ about Veld's words that struck me as condescending, but I had that impression nonetheless. Maybe it was just that I always suspected that someone who was so much older than I was couldn't possibly give me complete respect. Veld _had_ been my father's man, after all—part of the generation that had known the hoary old boundfat when he was in his prime. And he might always regard me as a child . . . although of course, right now it was possible that he was just annoyed at me for being unable to sort out the tatters of my life. Not that he was doing so well in that department either, if Reno was to be believed. 

"I don't have anything of interest to offer for now," I said. "Keep me apprised of the situation." 

"Of course, Mr. President," Tseng said formally. 

"You know my name, Tseng," I said. 

"Only in private," Tseng said, with a faint, wry smile. 

I raised my eyebrows. "Don't tell me you think there are bugs in your Director's office." 

"Reno has tried a few times," Veld said. "And I think Vincent may have succeeded for a brief period at least once . . . but I haven't received any unsolicited gifts from him lately." He sounded almost disappointed. 

I shook my head. I knew what kinds of games the Turks played with each other, and understood something of why they played them, but they still struck me as a bit ridiculous. 

When I left Veld's office, Elena was waiting for me in the lounge. Alone, without Cissnei. Well, not _quite_ alone, since Knife was sitting at one of the computers in the shared desk area, reading something on the screen and occasionally rubbing her chin. She didn't seem to be paying any attention to Elena or me, but I knew otherwise. No Turk was that careless. 

"I was starting to think they'd shot you in there and carried the body out the back way," Elena said, pushing herself away from the wall she had been leaning on. "What were you talking about in there?" 

I shrugged. "They have to keep me in the loop about what Rufus is doing, so if I suddenly have to substitute for him in an emergency, I won't slip up." It sounded good, anyway. "Why are you still here?" I added, trying to deflect her attention. 

"Actually, I was going to ask you to dinner." 

"Oh? Is this a date, or merely a greeting to a colleague?" Did I _want_ to go on a date with Elena? She wasn't bad-looking, but I barely knew her . . . and what I did know suggested that she was completely different from the women Rufus Shinra normally dated. Although really, I just dated those too-polished types more or less because it was expected of me. I never stuck with the same one for long, or slept with any of them more than once. Elena was at least _genuine_, although that was an odd thought to have of a Turk. I wondered if that would make a difference. 

. . . Having Shenlong inside me really had messed me up. Tseng, Elena . . . Hell, maybe I should just ask Reno if he was interested in something semi-permanent, and then maybe the suddenly lonely part of my brain would shut up. 

"The latter. For now." 

Well, that simplified things. Didn't it? And I didn't have any other plans. 

"Why not?" I said with a shrug. "We'll have to stay inside the Tower, though. I'm permanently on-call." More accurately, I had to have a guard if I left, and Elena herself wouldn't count . . . but she was probably good enough to notice at least some of the other Turks if they tried to shadow us. "I do have permission to put meals at the executive restaurant on the President's tab, though. Will that do?" 

Elena smiled. "I was going to invite you to the cafeteria, so yes." 

The staff of the executive restaurant were used to seeing Turks in their domain, although it was usually as bodyguards and escorts rather than as customers. Still, they were absolutely polite as they escorted us to a table in the middle of the floor . . . rather than my usual corner table, which I was about to insist on until I remembered I wasn't Rufus Shinra just now, but Mirror the brand-new Turk, who didn't have any special privileges here beyond piggybacking on Rufus' charge account. 

Elena ordered the braised chocobo, so I opted for fish and ordered a white wine I knew would complement our main courses. 

"So," I asked her over soup and breadsticks, "what did you think of your first day as a Turk?" 

"Are you saying that as someone who's been in for a while now?" she asked in return. "And don't give me that look. You're too familiar with the seniors—Tseng and Cissnei both. And you weren't surprised about Vincent Valentine, even if it's clear you don't get along." 

I shrugged, doing my best to keep it smooth. I was out of practice—this level of acting had been as natural as breathing to me, up until a couple of months ago. "I was only official as of today, but yes, I've known Tseng for a long time." 

"Since before whatever it was that landed you in the hospital?" 

I shrugged. 

"What were you doing laid up, anyway?" Elena continued, as though sensing she would get no response to her other question. 

"I was in an accident. They ended up having to do surgery to get some pieces of debris that had gotten stuck inside my chest cavity back out again. I don't think I was conscious for more than half an hour running until two weeks later." Sometimes the best lie is part of the truth. Also, I'd now let her pump me enough. It was time to counterattack. "You have a sister who's already in the Turks? Is it Gun?" 

"How did you know?" Elena shot back . . . and then we both stopped talking for a moment as the waiter came to clear away our soup bowls and replace them with the salad. 

"You don't resemble any of the others," I said after the waiter was gone. 

"Tseng didn't tell you?" 

"I never asked him." Once again, the truth was the best way of obscuring matters. 

"Was Tseng the one who taught you martial arts? I noticed that your style tends towards the Wutainese—more throws, less punching and grappling." 

"I've had more than one teacher." Again, useless truth. 

We fenced with words that way until the end of the dessert course. It was . . . entertaining, I suppose. While navigating conversational thickets was something I did all the time, the stakes were normally much higher than this, even if I was just prying the latest gossip out of Reno. The redhead made me work for it. 

I went to bed that night feeling unexpectedly satisfied.


	5. Chapter 5

**Elena**

_Well, that was . . . a thing._

I still wasn't sure what to make of Mirror. He was smart and charming and he'd made me smile a couple of times over our meal, which was more than most men managed. But there was still something off about him. 

I half-expected him not to be there the next morning at seven-thirty sharp (as the schedule Cissnei had given me indicated), but he showed up a couple of minutes before the deadline, moving a bit gingerly, with a bottle of water in hand. 

"Too much exercise?" I asked. 

"I really am out of shape," he said with a scowl, and took a pull from his bottle. "Tseng had me up at six o'clock this morning, running laps. It . . . isn't treatment I'm accustomed to." 

Reno, over by the coffee machine, snickered. "Yeah, Tseng says he intends to run you off your fake-Presidential ass. Betcha wish you'd kept in shape now, yo." 

"Mirror isn't that bad," I said. "And Tseng would never use the word 'ass'." I might not know Tseng all that well yet, but I'd been able to figure out that much. 

"I might not know much Wutainese, but I know all the dirty words, and he _definitely_ said 'ass'." 

"You know he's standing behind you, right?" Rod said—he'd just entered the room. 

Reno whipped around, saw that there was nothing behind him but a bunch of empty space and a wall, and said, "Rod, you bastard—gonna get you for that, yo!" 

"You and what army?" Rod said lazily. 

"Why would I need one?" Reno smiled nastily and pulled out an electro-mag rod that had been hidden somewhere in his clothes. 

"_Reno,_" Tseng said sharply, and we all stiffened, because none of us had seen him until he had spoken. He shouldn't have been all that well-hidden, standing in the shadow of a potted plant, but somehow he'd escaped our notice. Turk super-stealth. I wondered if they were going to teach us that. 

"You never let me have any fun, yo," Reno said. With a flick of his wrist, his weapon vanished somewhere out of sight. 

At that moment, my PHS rang. So did Mirror's, and from somewhere else on the floor, I thought I heard Shiv cursing. 

I'd just gotten a text from _Turk Ops_—Veld? Anyway, it said: _Assigned mission dossier coded N-0003-58. Partner, Mirror. You will be shadowed by your mentors, but they will not interfere._

I repressed a sigh. Another test. How long before they believed I was good enough? 

Mirror read his text and . . . well, he didn't quite snort, but I saw his nostrils flare in a way that suggested he'd barely repressed it. He manipulated his PHS for a while, eyes narrowed, and then looked at me. 

"It's a persuasion mission," he said, and I belatedly checked the file on my own PHS. Yes, there it was. Some idiot had stolen plans from Weapons Development, and we were to get them back by any means necessary. 

A nice phrase, "by any means necessary". It could cover anything from a few minutes of quiet conversation to shooting someone and leaving the body in a bad part of the Slums to be cleaned up by whole eaters. Although judging from the file, our target wasn't likely to be violent. Richard Prowles. A tubby, balding, fifty-something _janitor_, for crying out loud. Divorced, ex-wife dead of cancer as of a couple of months ago, kids old enough to be out on their own. He must have gotten a really good settlement from his wife to be able to afford a place with an address that ended in "Sector 3 Upper, Midgar". That was Plateside. Pricy, even for the worst spots. 

"I'll get my brass knuckles," I said. 

"Fine. I have some preparations of my own to make. I'll meet you in the lobby." 

I wasn't sure what his "preparations" were, because he wasn't carrying anything I could see when he rejoined me, just inside the main doors. He walked right past me, actually, touching me on the shoulder to show that he knew I was there. 

"I ordered a car," he said as I hurried to catch up. "More efficient than riding the train, and the address they gave us is out at the edge of the Plate, which would mean a fair walk from the station." 

"I hope you know how to drive, then," I said. 

"I got my license when I was your age." 

"So how old are you now?" Okay, so I could tell he wasn't sixteen. But he wasn't thirty, either. Probably not even twenty-five. 

"Older," he offered unhelpfully. The perfect Turk. More information I was going to have to snoop out. 

"I understand now why Tseng thought you'd be good at this job," I muttered. 

"Up to a point," Mirror said, pulling open a side door. That took us down a short hallway and out the side of the building into a small parking area. There were slots for five cars, but only one of them was occupied, by a polished black sedan. Mirror's eyebrows quirked, but he shrugged and stepped forward, and the keys he pulled from his pocket unlocked the car. "I didn't expect them to give us one of the armoured ones . . . although perhaps I should have." 

"Why?" 

I didn't really expect him to answer, but he did. "Tseng thinks I'm too valuable to risk. Among other things. That's why he gave us a non-dangerous mission. If it's any reassurance, that means he _will_ intervene if we somehow mess this up to the point where it looks like we might get ourselves killed, even if he says otherwise." 

But that would mean . . . "You're only half a Turk?" I'd blurted it out again, like a fool. 

"Something like that," Mirror admitted, although it didn't seem to bother him much. "Get in." 

The car felt like it weighed more than it should from the way it rode over bumps in the road, but I never would have guessed it was armoured if Mirror hadn't told me. Tseng and Cissnei were probably right behind us, but when I tried to spot their car, I couldn't. 

We drove in silence. I wondered what Mirror was thinking about, but I wasn't crazy enough to ask. Maybe he was just thinking about not crashing into anything—he might have a license, but he sometimes wrenched the wheel in a way that told me he didn't drive all that often. Did he masquerade as Rufus sometimes just so he could borrow his chauffeur? If Rufus had a chauffeur? Or was he not good enough to fool people who knew Rufus when they saw him close up? 

Mirror checked his sawed-off Randall when we pulled up—he'd gotten a really good holster for it somewhere that made it vanish under his suit jacket. I'd had to settle for slipping my new Quicksilver through the back of my belt. I'd have to ask Sis if she had a spare shoulder holster I could have, once she got home from her mission. Or bite the bullet and go buy one. 

I also made sure my brass knuckles were easy to get at, because I hadn't been joking about them. I'd had to use them more than once, because the crime rate below-Plate was unbelievable. I'd never used them for anything quite like this, though. 

"Let's go," Mirror said. So certain that he was in charge . . . but arguing with him would probably be difficult. Better to just go along with it until he was obviously screwing up. 

The apartment building was probably one of the least fancy to be found on the Plate. Hell, rough it up a bit, break the windows and crumble some bricks, and it would have looked right at home in the Slums. Inside, it was clean and new-looking, but spartan—white walls, metal doors, linoleum, mottled brown berber carpet. I headed for the elevator, but Mirror ignored it and pulled open the door to the stairs instead. I shrugged and went with him. After all, the climb would be harder on him than on me. 

"So what do we do when we get there?" I asked, since I wanted to know whether I should take over or not. "Break the door down?" 

Mirror shook his head. "We want to act as though this is non-urgent . . . at first. We can scare him later, if we need to. It's much more difficult to go the other way. I'd rather not kill this idiot if we don't have to, and if he panics and tries something stupid, there may not be much else we can do." 

"So we knock politely, and then he gets spooked and goes out a window," I said. 

"The windows here don't open—they're solid sheets of glass with no sliding panes. We'll hear it if he breaks one. If that happens, you run back out through the lobby while I break down the door and shoot at him through the broken window. He won't get far." 

It sounded like a good-enough plan to me, so I shrugged and said, "You're awfully confident." 

"In my ability to pry things out of people through aggressive negotiation? Yes, I am. Which is the other reason we were assigned this mission, I'm sure." He gave me a Rufus smirk as he opened the door to the third floor. 

Apartment 338 was at the back of the building. Mirror knocked sharply on the door, which opened a moment later. There was a chain still holding it in place, with someone peering through the gap. 

"I suggest you open the door, Mr. Prowles," Mirror said smoothly. "You don't want us out here scaring your neighbours for any longer than necessary, do you?" 

Prowles tried to yank the door shut, but I got my hand in the way. With my brass knuckles on, so he couldn't crush my fingers. 

"It doesn't work that way," Mirror said, and added his hand to mine. His eyes narrowed and his jaw set as he pulled hard on the door, and there were some unpleasant metallic noises as the chain gave way. "I think we'd all prefer to take care of this quietly." 

Prowles made a gargling noise and let go of the door, stepping back. I slipped inside first, ducking slightly to avoid Mirror's arm. 

"What happened to scaring him later?" I asked. 

Mirror smirked. "Some people are impatient. Now, Mr. Prowles. You appear to have taken something from the Department of Weapons Development that doesn't belong to you. We want it back." 

"I—I needed the money! Without the alimony, I can't afford the rent—" 

"Did I ask you _why_ you took it?" Mirror asked, his voice mild. "We don't actually care about reasons. Our job is to get it back. No more, no less. We're not here to shoot you. Not if you cooperate." 

I'd been expecting him to use lines lifted from a bad gangster movie—to be honest, it was what I would have done—but Mirror's calm and semi-polite words were somehow scarier than open threats would have been. I think it was the absolute confidence and slight disdain he was oozing as he spoke. Probably his best Rufus Shinra imitation. 

Prowles was bobbing his head up and down, so I said, "If you agree, why don't you go get it?" I also pulled off my brass knuckles and put them away. I'd noticed that Mirror had carefully avoided saying exactly what it was that we'd come here to fetch. Probably hoping that if Prowles had stolen anything other than the documents mentioned in the file, he'd bring that out too, just to make sure we wouldn't come back. 

Mirror waited patiently, posture straight, arms at his sides, while Prowles rummaged around in another room. It sounded like he was making a mess. At last he emerged again, carrying . . . a plastic shopping bag full of papers. Prowles plopped it down on a chair, then dropped to his knees on the carpet in front of his TV, looking like he'd just run a marathon. 

Mirror picked up the bag, giving it a disdainful look down the length of his nose, and took the papers out. He leafed through them rapidly, then tapped the edge of the stack against the coffee table to square it up. 

"Everything's here," he told me. "Let's go." 

I smiled at Prowles as I followed Mirror out, then wrinkled my nose as he wet himself. Still, I could get used to this—to being feared. No one had ever been scared of blonde, diminutive Elena before, and it was a heady feeling.


	6. Chapter 6

**Tseng**

"Well?" Veld asked, sitting absolutely still behind his desk. I suspected he wanted to fidget, but he was the very one who had taught me that a Turk couldn't be seen making unnecessary movements. It telegraphed too much . . . unless one was like Reno, and fidgeted all the time. Which struck me as an exhausting proposition. 

"He seems to be . . . more engaged with the world, at least," I said slowly. "He's enjoying himself, I think. These minor missions are play for him. He doesn't have to be as completely in control as he has been all his life. And he's quite talented at . . . aggressive negotiations. If he weren't required elsewhere, we really could make a Turk of him." 

"It's fortunate that the Board _can_ get along without him for the time being," Veld said. "Tuesti's a bit soft, but that's exactly what we need right now. He'll keep the lid on for as long as necessary." 

The other half of that wasn't spoken aloud by either of us, that the Shinra Corporation's Board of Directors might not really need Rufus Shinra ever again. Everything seemed to be working well enough without his intervention. But without a purpose in life, Rufus would become dangerous—a blind man could see that. He was trained to give orders, and quite good at it despite his young age. 

"He's spending a lot of time with that girl Elena," Veld said. 

I shrugged. "We've partnered them temporarily, mostly for her sake. The other two trainees need a little respect beaten into them before they're ready to work with a woman. Rufus, on the other hand, has known Cissnei for a couple of years now." 

"Hmmm. Is there any evidence of . . . ?" 

Veld could be rather old-fashioned sometimes. "Of romantic attraction? Not according to my observations." In fact, what I _had_ observed of Rufus' recent proclivities in that direction made me a bit . . . well. It wasn't that I objected to having an attractive young man staring at me, but when that young man was Rufus Shinra, it felt rather like that stare was coming from from the younger brother I had never had. "I believe Elena is still trying to find her feet. She is, after all, quite young—two years younger than Gun was when we accepted her. Until she is confident of her standing here, I think she will force herself not to think of romance. And Rufus . . . is being Rufus." Meaning that he never made the first move in such matters. He had never needed to. 

"Mmm. Well, that's better than him being a hermit." Veld's expression darkened subtly. "Now, about the other matter . . ." 

"It looks as though Erik Arnarson has dropped out of sight. Perhaps intentionally, perhaps not, and while his being missing is suggestive, it is . . . far from conclusive." 

Veld grimaced. "I wish you weren't right about that." 

"As do I. I've put Reno on it. I've also asked Vincent to assist." Reno was our best hacker, and Vincent had an odd intuitive quality to him sometimes. Between them, I hoped they would come up with something. 

Veld nodded. "You'll keep Rufus apprised of the status of the investigation." 

"Of course," I said. 

"Thank you, Tseng. I'm getting too old for this," Veld added, leaning back in his chair. "If I retire officially from active duty to become a full-time administrator, do you think you'll be able to take up the slack?" 

I did some calculations. Schedules. Veld hadn't been in the field much for the past few years, but he did take bodyguard and lookout shifts within Midgar when we needed to free someone else up. "Let me get the new juniors up to speed first. If Elena proves to be as good as I think she may be, we'll have enough people." 

"All right." Veld broke eye contact with me to glance down at a photo on his desk—the one of himself, his wife, and his daughter. Understandable that he would want to be able to spend more time with Felicia-Elfe, now that he had found her again. Regardless, for him it was a very telling gesture. 

It was well after seven o'clock when I finally left Veld's office. I knew that I should be going to the employee cafeteria to secure myself a meal, but instead I found myself headed for the executive levels. I would report the status of the Arnarson investigation to Rufus, then find myself some food. 

I knocked on the door to Rufus' suite. He didn't answer it, but inside, Dark Nation started to bark. Which she never did—the guard hound was far too well-trained. Barking meant that something was wrong, and it was beyond Dark Nation's own ability to deal with. 

I opened the door and found Dark Nation directly in front of me. The guard hound whined and grabbed my sleeve gently between her teeth, and I let her pull me further inside the darkened apartment. I also took out my gun. Although the guard hound should have been able to resolve any violent problems himself, there was no need to be careless. 

Weapon at ready, I followed Dark Nation into the sitting room. Still no sign of Rufus, but . . . no, there he was. Unconscious in a heap on the floor. I fanned the room quickly with my gun, straining all my senses to the limit . . . but I heard nothing but my own breath and smelled nothing but the guard hound. 

Dark Nation let go of me as I knelt beside her master. Rufus was pale, his skin clammy, but he was breathing steadily and his pulse felt strong. When shouts, slaps, and gentle shaking failed to rouse him, I reholstered my gun and took out my PHS instead. Somehow, my hands remained steady as I worked the device. 

All the important numbers were neatly arranged in my list of contacts, of course. I selected one entry and dialed. 

"Dr. Rayleigh Pruitt speaking." 

"I apologize for disturbing you, doctor, but I just found President Rufus unconscious in his apartment. He appears to be ill rather than injured, but . . ." 

" . . . there aren't many illnesses that will bite on someone who's even lightly enhanced," the head of the Science Department provided. "I'm going to need him up here if I'm going to run tests." 

I placed my next call to Rude. It wasn't the first time we'd needed to do something discreet involving a stretcher, so it didn't take long for him to locate one and bring it there. I used the monitoring functions on my PHS to make sure that the elevator that came for us was empty, and activated a security mode with my card to make sure it stayed that way. 

We rode directly to the sixty-seventh floor. The reception area was dimly lit and empty, the receptionist having gone home for the evening, and we passed through it without stopping. 

Dr. Rayleigh was waiting for us in the first examination room. She gestured for us to move Rufus from the stretcher to a steel table. Once we had him there, she attached a few electrodes, opened his shirt, attached a few more, and frowned at the readings she was getting. 

"Heart rate and breathing slow and steady, brain waves characteristic of deep sleep, but he won't wake up . . . At least he doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger. I'm going to do some blood tests. One of you should stay here. If the equipment starts to scream at you, come and get me immediately." 

"Understood," I said. "I'll stay. Rude, you're dismissed." 

Rude nodded and left the room while Dr. Rayleigh found a syringe and drew the blood she needed. I half-ignored her, sunk in . . . well, there was no point in not admitting it. I was worried. About Rufus Shinra. Because I was afraid that this might have been self-inflicted. 

A year ago, I would never have suspected such a thing, but now . . . _It's as though there are gaping holes in my mind. _And, _I can't allow anyone to see me like this._ The more I considered those words in the light of his present condition, the more they frightened me. 

I disciplined myself to appear outwardly calm, hoping that inner calm would follow. Sometimes it did . . . but not under circumstances like this. Not when a comrade was down, felled by I knew not what. But pacing or outwardly appearing concerned would destroy the mystique of Tseng of the Turks. I couldn't let myself fall into such habits. 

Five minutes. Ten. The various beeps and electronic traces put out by the medical equipment did not change, and Rufus did not wake. By the time Dr. Rayleigh reappeared, it was getting difficult to maintain my silence and my unmoving stance. 

When the head of the Science Department did step through the door, she was carrying a large and vicious syringe filled with something that glowed green. 

"Is that mako, Doctor?" I asked, easing my hand toward the butt of my gun. 

"Dilute mako, yes. It's one of the booster shots we use for the SOLDIER Thirds." 

"And why would President Shinra benefit from a SOLDIER's booster shot?" There was no need to make any sudden moves, I told myself. Not yet. 

"Because he effectively has a SOLDIER's metabolism," she said, frowning. "Hasn't he told you any of this? The health care proxy document he signed empowers you, specifically, to make medical decisions on his behalf in cases where he's unable." 

"He never told me about that proxy, or about anything to do with _that_," I said, gesturing at the mako syringe. "Explain." 

Her frown became a full-fledged grimace. "Normally it would be an unacceptable breach of patient confidentiality, but in this case, you're his decision-maker and can legally and morally block me from treating him. All right. You know, of course, that Hojo had President Shinra under his control for a couple of weeks. In that time, he seems to have exposed him to J-cells, mako, and what we're calling S-cells, taken from General Sephiroth. That's on top of the materia they cut out of him at the Northern Crater, which had its own effects." 

She glanced at Rufus before returning her attention to me. "Fortunately, although his exposure to all those things was _intense_, it didn't last very long, so it only corrupted five percent or so of his cells permanently away from the human norm. That's within the normal range for SOLDIER Thirds. The altered cells are the source of a SOLDIER's abilities, but in order to perform at a beyond-human level, they need more energy than burning food in the normal human way can provide. The ideal power source for them is an implanted materia, which forms a direct energy connection to the Lifestream, but mako in the bloodstream or infused into the tissues through the skin is an adequate substitute, especially when dealing with a low J-cell count like the President's. However, when the materia he was implanted with broke, it absorbed the mako he had on hand while trying to repair itself. Apparently he did something within the past day or so that burned up the last dregs. He's suffering from mako depletion. This—" She held up the syringe. "—should put him right back on his feet, although he may be mako-drunk for a little while." 

"And if he doesn't receive any mako?" I asked. 

"He'll eventually wake up, but it'll take a few days and he'll be very weak. Think of it as trying to charge a battery with only a trickle of power." 

"Ah." I lowered the hand that had been reaching for my gun to my side. "You may proceed." _And thank all the gods that this turned out to be something simple and treatable._

"Thank you. Can you get his arm out of that jacket for me?" 

Carefully, I extracted Rufus' left arm from his jacket (white rather than Turk blue, for the first time in quite a long time). Rayleigh unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt one-handed and rolled it up so that she could access his elbow. The injection made the veins there glow faintly green through the skin. 

"He should wake up within half an hour," she said. "Once he's conscious, it should be fine for him to return home. I expect you'll want to stay with him, so I'll get you a chair." 

"Thank you, Doctor." Obtaining similar service from Hojo while he had still been in charge might have been . . . problematic. Overall, this had been remarkably painless. 

"It's part of my job, Tseng-san." 

I didn't wince. Rayleigh had no reason to know my history, and wouldn't know why I found the Wutainese honourific offensive. Instead, I inclined my head politely. 

And so I sat at Rufus' bedside, waiting for the blue eyes to open, and listening to the discordant sounds of the monitors tracking his vital signs.


	7. Chapter 7

**Rufus**

I opened my eyes on a small, blurry room. Something was making beeping noises, my left arm burned, and someone was holding my right hand. 

What the hell had happened? I'd been at home, and then— 

"You're awake. Good." Thankfully, it was a voice I knew. 

"Tseng." It was difficult to make myself sound strong. "What happened?" 

"You collapsed due to mako deficiency." 

My vision was clearing now, although it was tinged green. I could see the familiar disapproving non-expression on Tseng's face as he leaned over me. 

"You never told me—or anyone—that you'd become mako-dependent," he added, frowning. 

"Did it cross your mind that perhaps I didn't want you to know?" I glared back at him with all the force I could muster, which wasn't very much when everything was slicked over with a green haze . . . but I still felt obliged to make the effort. Tseng knew that I despised drug addicts—I'd seen the downward spiral happen once too often, to some of the other wealthy young men I pretended were my friends because it was expected of me and they were potentially useful dupes. Even before recent events, I had been determined not to follow their example, and now . . . I had already lost a great deal of my control over my life. I wasn't going to lose any more. The very thought made me feel nauseous. _More_ nauseous. 

"This is more akin to insulin than cocaine, Rufus. It supports your body's functions. You're not taking it for pleasure." 

"I only need it if I'm actually using the enhancements Hojo forced on me." But if I were honest with myself, it was difficult _not_ to use them. Difficult to judge, when my brain was clamouring at me to do something _as fast as I could_, whether I'd gone over the line into unnatural speed. Difficult to tell whether a sudden burst of strength was fueled by adrenaline or by mako. And sensory enhancements couldn't be turned off. And part of me thought these abilities were only natural, were actually _less_ than I should have. 

"You won't be able to avoid that," Tseng said. 

"I don't need them to do a desk job," I snapped. 

"I wasn't talking about the job of President. You, _Rufus Shinra_, separate from the job, will not be able to avoid using your abilities from time to time, even if we make Mirror the Turk disappear right now . . . and I think you are rather enjoying being him, are you not?" 

I scowled and refused to answer him. Because he was right—I was enjoying being Mirror. Rufus Shinra had to be _nice_ to people a surprising amount of the time, in order not to burn bridges on which future negotiations might rest. Mirror, on the other hand, could just do Turk-like things without affecting the future of Shinra, Inc. any more than any other Turk would. 

I hadn't had to shoot anyone in the back yet, but given that Rufus Shinra was constantly in the position of having to tolerate fools, I imagined that killing one or two such men might be . . . cathartic, even if there was a whining little voice in the back of my mind telling me that it was wrong. It had less force than Shenlong's ghost usually did, though—perhaps because I was only considering a hypothetical. 

Regardless, I was feeling much better now than I had in weeks. I sat up, noting with a grimace that my jacket was half on and half off and my shirt was unfastened down the front with one sleeve rolled up, and began pulling electrodes off my chest and forehead. Tseng sat back and watched me. 

They hadn't even taken off my shoes or my shoulder holster, just laid me down directly on a metal gurney. And this wasn't one of the hospital floors. 

"Tseng, where are we?" I asked as I began to button my shirt, forcing my fingers to move precisely even though they felt like sausages. _Mako-drunk._ Although I didn't seem to be getting any of the euphoric effects, just blurred vision and messed-up coordination. 

"The lab floors. Medical treatment of the enhanced is the responsibility of the Science Department, and in any case, I didn't think you would want your condition widely known, and Dr. Rayleigh was immediately available." 

"And does anyone else know at all?" I rolled my sleeve back down, and Tseng immediately reached for the cuff before I could make myself look like a fool by trying to fasten it one-handed. 

"I enlisted Rude to help me bring you up here. He won't talk." 

Because Rude barely talked at all, right. "No one else?" 

Tseng actually smiled. "Are you worried about young Elena seeing you in such a condition?" 

I almost growled. "No, I'm afraid of appearing weak in front of Sephiroth and the other SOLDIERs. Their respect for me is precarious enough already. The moment Sephiroth stops backing me, the Shinra Corporation will leave my hands." 

"Sephiroth has an understanding with Administrative Research. While you have our backing, you will continue to have his as well. The truth is, he seems to dislike you far less than you dislike him." 

That was because he had considered me beneath his notice until my father had died, I was sure. They said that Rufus Shinra never cried because I always did so where no one, not even Tseng, could see me, but I was fairly sure that Sephiroth was incapable of tears. 

Ultimately, I suppose what bothered me the most about Sephiroth was that I couldn't _read_ the man, even though I'd been training all my life to read people. The silver-haired SOLDIER had the most controlled expression of anyone I had ever met. Including myself and all the Turks. 

With my clothes back in place, I heaved myself off the gurney. Tseng reached for my elbow to steady me, but aborted the action when I made it clear that I didn't need it. 

"Dark Nation will be wondering where I am," I said, straightening my jacket. 

"She was quite worried about you." Tseng fell in behind me as I headed for the door. 

I snorted, pretending that the idea didn't make me feel a little warmth inside. Rufus Shinra didn't do warmth. Shenlong had, though. Perhaps that was why I suddenly wanted to clap Tseng on the shoulder. Although I didn't allow myself to do it. 

We proceeded in silence to the elevator, and then out of it again a few moments later on the executive residential floor. Tseng followed me to my apartment, although I had expected him to either return to his office or head for his own smaller suite on the floor below. 

Dark Nation was pleased to see me, wagging her stumpy tail and making happy doggy noises. Of course, that may just have been because I hadn't had time to feed her before I'd lost consciousness. She certainly wagged and slobbered her way all the way to the kitchen in my wake, and danced from one foot to the other as I grabbed a can and opened it for her. It took me two tries, but my control over my hands was improving. 

Tseng also followed me into the kitchen, although he didn't slobber, or have a tail to wag. He also followed me back out into the sitting room again, which Dark Nation was too preoccupied with her meal to do. 

I walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows that gave me a pretty good view out over Sector Two, if I looked past Tseng's reflection in the glass. And didn't mind everything still being slightly green. "Why are you still here?" I asked without turning around. 

Tseng's expression . . . flickered, but whatever he was feeling, he wiped it from his face again too quickly for me to read it. "I will be back here for you at six o'clock tomorrow morning." 

"I know." If I slacked off in Mirror's training, there would need to be some explanation of why. And "I fell ill" might lead to nosy junior Turks trying to pry my records out of the infirmary. And not finding any. "I really am fine, Tseng." 

"Rufus." 

A long pause. I knew he was looking for a response, and I wasn't about to give him one. 

In the end, Tseng went ahead anyway. "Taking necessary risks is one thing. Taking _foolish_ risks is quite another. I will be reporting what happened tonight to Veld. He will not be pleased. And . . . I am not pleased. I feared for you." 

"I never asked you to." 

"I know. But we have long since passed the point where I might have been content with merely doing my job, when it comes to you." 

Tseng was close behind me now, right against my shoulder. If I had tried to turn, I would have brushed his chest. And part of me wanted very much to turn, although it wasn't certain whether it also wanted to hug and kiss him, or just lean against him and soak up the delicious sensation of having someone who _cared_ right there with me. 

But I was Rufus Shinra, and Rufus Shinra couldn't do such a thing. Even Mirror the Turk couldn't do such a thing. 

. . . I'd felt this pain before, I suddenly realized. After my mother had died, when Tseng was, effectively, all I'd had left. Maybe it had still been there all along, smothered and walled off in some back corner of my mind, until Shenlong had walked through my subconscious with taloned feet and torn all the hidden places open. 

That actually gave me some confidence. If I had dealt with this feeling before, and succeeded in walling it away, I could do so again. I just needed time. 

"You're right. I wasn't considering the situation that I was putting you in." I couldn't actually apologize out loud, but I knew Tseng would understand anyway. And indeed, he inclined his head. "I appreciate you keeping this quiet," I added. "But I need to get some sleep if you're getting me up at the crack of dawn again." 

"Very well, Mr. President. Good night." 

Tseng left me alone with Dark Nation, but I'd lied to him: I wasn't actually tired, not with fresh mako in my veins. My mouth twisted with self-disgust as I contemplated that. _Addict. Freak._ Damn Hojo. I hoped the Lifestream spit him out again as a colony of roaches, just in time for them to all meet the exterminator and die an agonizing death without ever understanding why. 

Still, my condition wasn't going to just go away. I needed to learn to live with it. SOLDIERs did, and I was no weaker mentally than any of them. I couldn't afford to be. 

The green film was fading from my vision at last. I was absorbing the mako rapidly. But then, Rayleigh had told me to expect that, back when she'd first laid out the reality of my condition for me. The S-cells Hojo had given me were more efficient than ordinary J-cells at storing and settling mako, probably because Sephiroth had spent his early life pickled in the stuff. 

I frowned. I was going to have to put up with the same quarterly medical checkups and mako level evaluations as the SOLDIERs did, too. For the rest of my life. Wonderful. 

I did eventually get to bed that night, and woke refreshed after four hours or so of sleep, at a quarter after five. That gave me time to walk Dark Nation before Tseng arrived. 

The central Plate was safe and well-patrolled even at this hour of the morning, so I had no qualms about walking the streets without a Turk protector. Especially since I was armed. And I knew that if something went wrong, Dark Nation would stop ranging around ahead and to either side and go straight for whoever was trying to hurt me. Tseng would undoubtedly be annoyed, but I didn't intend that he would ever find out. 

It must have snowed during the night, because there was a thin layer of it crunching under my shoe soles. My breath was visible as I strode along the sidewalk. A year ago, I might have felt cold. As things stood, I was quite comfortable in just my suit jacket. No doubt my body was burning mako to produce that effect, but after last night it was clear that trying to shy away from that wouldn't do me any good. 

I paused under a streetlight as Dark Nation began to sniff at the corner of a building with considerable interest. No doubt some other canine had marked it. The problem with guard hounds is that, underneath a couple of layers of genetic engineering, they're still dogs. 

Footsteps. It was probably one of the law enforcement patrols, but I let my hand slide over to where my shotgun was hidden anyway. Just in case. 

"President Rufus, sir? What are you doing out here so early?" 

Familiar voice. Damn it all. "I was out for a walk with a friend," I said, gesturing at Dark Nation, who had looked up once, then returned to sniffing at the bricks. Well, she'd likely smelled Elena on me a time or two now. That should be enough for her to class the girl as non-dangerous. "You're . . . Elena, I believe. One of the new Turks." 

"That's right, sir." She was bundled up thoroughly, in a threadbare jacket and a long scarf. I made a mental note to tell Cissnei to have her issued a thermal undershirt. Veld wouldn't be pleased if he caught her dressed like this. "I'm surprised you recognize me." 

"Tseng shows me all the dossiers," I said. "One of the ways we make sure that no one can successfully impersonate a Turk. I might ask what _you_ are doing out here so early, and on foot at that." 

Elena shrugged. "Maybe after I get my first paycheck, I'll be able to afford to take the train every day. For now, I walk." 

"I'll have Tseng arrange an advance for you, then. You won't be of much use to us if you freeze something off." 

"I'd prefer it if you didn't, sir." 

I smirked. "I don't think I was _asking_ you." 

"And I was merely stating a preference." Straight-spined and proud and not going down without a (verbal) fight—that, I was learning, was Elena. 

"As you say." 

"Is that Dark Nation?" Elena asked as the guard hound trotted back toward us. 

"Yes." 

She squatted down for a better look at the guard hound, who proceeded to lick her face. "That's a nasty scar." 

"She was injured a few months ago," I said. "Defending me." I felt a twinge of guilt as I said it. I'd almost lost Dark Nation. I'd almost lost _Tseng_. _I'm still more important,_ I told myself, but it didn't chase away the feeling. 

"Oh," she said, and pushed at Dark Nation. "Back off, you. You have doggy breath." She straightened up. "It's been interesting, Mr. President, but I have to get going now, or I'm going to get in trouble with my mentor for being late." 

"Of course." I waved her on. She gave me a searching look as she passed me. 

I just hoped that didn't mean she'd seen through Mirror's disguise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm, so if the bigwigs of Midgar held a dog obedience competition, who would win? Dark Nation, Galian, or Zack the Puppy? ;)


	8. Chapter 8

**Elena**

At first, I'd thought that Mirror only looked a bit like President Shinra, not even good enough to fool someone from up close. Then I'd gotten better photographs and more of the President's vital data and realized they were physically quite alike—height, build, facial features. 

And then I'd _met_ the President, and realized that it was _scary_ how alike he and Mirror were. Like Mirror was playing Rufus all the time without ever stopping. They talked the same, styled their hair the same, had the same expressions and little mannerisms. Mirror's hair was darker, and his eyes a more faded blue, without the subtle mako glow that Rufus had (and how had that happened?). Plus, Rufus didn't wear glasses . . . but give Mirror the right contact lenses and a wig, and he could probably have fooled the President's mother. 

I was curious how deep down the Rufus imitation went. Was there anything of Mirror (or whoever he had been before joining the Turks) still in there? Or had he transformed himself into Rufus-lite all the way down? _Why?_ No one was that devoted to their job. 

It didn't help that I liked Mirror-as-Rufus-lite. I mean, if I dug deep enough to find out what was underneath the mask, I might end up finding a real jerk. And that would suck. Especially since it looked like he was my partner for the time being. 

They sent us to the Records level together to find some crap whose purpose I didn't understand. Then it was an observation mission: stake out the back entrance of a building in Sector Seven Upper for six hours and make notes on the people who came and went. Mirror's light, cutting comments on those people made the time pass much faster than it might have otherwise. No dangerous missions, though. Mirror had been right about Tseng not wanting to risk him, even though his fighting ability was improving. 

I also found out where he lived: a single bedroom attached to Rufus' apartment. Which made sense, I guess, just in case they needed to sub him in in a hurry. Still, his room was even barer than mine, and that took some doing. I at least had family photos and a couple of martial arts tournament trophies to prove that someone lived at my place. Mirror had a single landscape painting on his wall, and while I was sure it was a good painting, it looked bland to me. Impersonal. Like something you would find in a really expensive hotel. The rest of the room was the same, tasteful and blah. Maybe Rufus' rooms ran to tasteful and blah too, but I didn't get a chance to see, since we'd only stopped by so that Mirror could change out of a suit jacket Shiv had torn during a spar. 

While we were doing all those normal things, there was something bothering the upper echelons of Administrative Research. It took me a while to see it, because I hadn't been there long enough to figure out how the department normally functioned, but they were on edge. Veld wasn't sleeping to the point where he looked like he had two black eyes, and Tseng rubbed the bridge of his nose when he thought no one could see him. I even caught Reno looking worried. Once. For about three seconds. 

I had a feeling Mirror knew something about what was going on, that they were keeping him partially in the loop because they were keeping Rufus in the loop, but he didn't talk about it, and I didn't ask. That was part of being in the Turks, knowing when not to ask. I was still working on it. 

In the end, I asked Sis, who was finally back from Junon. I took her out for lunch (Rufus had made good on what he'd said about an advance, leaving me as much pissed off as I was grateful), and we talked. 

"The seniors aren't talking to me, either," she admitted. 

"But?" I prodded, recognizing the look on her face. 

She smiled. "But Reno doesn't always clean up properly after himself. He probably thinks no one can read his handwriting, but it isn't _completely_ impenetrable, if you work at it." 

"Well, don't keep me in suspense." 

"All I've got is the words 'bomb threat' and a couple of names—partial names, at that. But they seem to be relatives of the President." 

"So are they being threatened? Or are they the threat?" 

"No clue," my sister admitted. "But I'll tell you anything I find out . . . if you do the same for me." 

"Deal," I said instantly. 

It was the easiest conversation we'd had in years. Since Sis had joined the Turks, she'd tended to just clam up in the middle of talking to me as she tried not to say things, and I'd resented it. We'd ended up fighting a lot. 

"So what's this I hear about you and Rod?" I asked teasingly. 

She flushed slightly. "We are _not_ dating! We were assigned as partners for a while, that's all, and I got to know him better than most of the others." 

"And you aren't partners anymore because . . . ?" I smirked, imitating Mirror imitating Rufus, since he really did have the best superior expression I'd ever seen. 

"Veld. _He_ believed the rumours. Damned fossil. He should retire and let Tseng take over. Not that Tseng isn't stiff, but he doesn't let stuff like that bother him as much. Maybe it's the whole daddy thing." 

I blinked. "Tseng has a kid?" 

Sis bopped me on the head, the way she used to do when I was five and said something dumb. "No, _Veld_ has a kid. Felicia. She's about your age. He used to be married, too, but he doesn't talk about it to anyone but Valentine, and that not very often." 

"Were they really partners?" 

"Check out the pictures on Veld's desk if you ever get called into his office. There's a shot of him and Valentine from back then. They're both almost unrecognizable. My turn to ask questions. What's this I hear about you and Mirror?" 

"We're temporary partners or something. I think." 

"For future reference, it isn't usual to take meals with your partner unless you're on a mission. It makes it look like there's something more going on." 

I rolled my eyes. "Trust me, Mirror is a great guy, but I'm not intending to romance him. Not when he's got what's probably the worst job in the department. I realize we're all at some risk of getting shot, but being Rufus Shinra's body double has got to make his risk higher by a good order of magnitude." 

"Hmm. And if he lost that job?" 

I looked down at my empty plate. "I don't know. He's cute, and he can be fun to be with, and we get along okay, but he lives and breathes his Rufus Shinra imitation, and President Rufus has an ego the size of the Tower." 

"Phallic and sixty-plus stories tall?" Sis asked with a grin. 

"And made of reinforced concrete," I said, and we both laughed. "Besides, Tseng is better-looking than Mirror _or_ Rufus." 

"You always have had a thing for exotic-looking guys. Tseng, though, he's kind of . . . Well, you know . . ." 

"Frigid?" I suggested. "Gay?" He might have been, for all I knew. I'd never talked to him about anything that wasn't business. Maybe I needed to do something about that. 

"Celibate," Sis provided. "I don't know whether that's because he isn't interested, though, or he just has a crazy work ethic." 

"No one has a work ethic _that_ strong," I protested, and Sis laughed and changed the subject. 

My good mood evaporated when I got to the offices the next morning, though, because the tension had just ratcheted up another notch. It was subtle, though—just a feeling in the air. Well, that and the fact that Reno actually looked serious again. 

Cissnei beckoned me over to where she was standing, in the shadow of a potted plant. She was looking serious too. 

"What's going on?" I asked in a low voice. 

"Something just broke in an ongoing case," she whispered back. "I'm not certain of the details." 

My PHS rang just then. So did hers. It was a text from the increasingly familiar _Turk Ops_. 

_Report to the helipad in 30min. Bring travel packs. Briefing en route._

"Just us?" I asked, looking at Cissnei. 

"Not if we're being briefed in transit. That means Veld, Tseng, or maybe Vincent or Reno will be going along." 

"_Reno?_" I said incredulously. 

"He's actually third-in-command. That doesn't matter unless both Veld and Tseng get taken out, though." 

It had to be a joke . . . but it didn't look like Cissnei was joking. 

"Go grab your travel pack—you do have one, right?" my mentor said. 

"I _have_ been reading all that stuff you've been throwing at me. Yes, I have a travel pack." I went and grabbed it from my locker in the side room without waiting for a reply. A regulation Turk travel pack contains five days' worth of clean shirts, socks, and underwear, five hundred rounds of ammunition for your preferred weapon, one set of covert ops camo gear, one set of thermal gear, a first-aid kit, a disguise kit, a sewing kit, and anything else you thought might be useful. I'd thought hard before adding makeup and a couple of dresses to mine, with shoes and accessories that worked with either one—what Sis would have called a full femme kit. It wasn't how people would expect a Turk to dress, anyway. I'd also tossed in a little two-shot derringer that was easier to conceal than my Quicksilver but took the same kind of ammo, a string of grenades, binoculars, a boy's school uniform that fit me pretty well if I flattened my chest a bit, and a couple of tension bandages to do the flattening. Fight if you can't hide. Hide if you can't fight. And make sure you can sneak around anytime. 

I wondered in passing what the others kept in theirs. Rude's probably included a good eight pairs of sunglasses. Did Valentine keep a suit of normal clothes in his, if he had one? Cissnei clearly had hers well-populated, anyway, because the sides of the regulation military duffel she was carrying when she rejoined me bulged outwards. We headed for the helipad immediately, although we had nearly twenty minutes before we had to report. 

Tseng was waiting for us there, standing beside a helicopter. "Stow your bags," he told us, the moment we appeared. "We have one more person we need to wait for." 

I followed Cissnei's lead in securing my luggage. There was another bag already in the compartment. It had to be Tseng's. It was of the same military issue as mine and Cissnei's, well-worn, with a neatly-mended cut across one side. I was probably better off not wondering what had caused that. 

We waited in silence after that. Ten minutes later, a familiar figure stepped out onto the helipad: Mirror. Carrying a garment bag and a distinctly non-military suitcase that I would have bet was Rufus Shinra surplus. 

Tseng glanced at the garment bag and raised an eyebrow, to which Mirror said only, "In case." _Of what?_ I wondered, but Tseng nodded and helped him stow the extra bag without a word. 

We got into the helicopter, strapped in, and put on headsets. Tseng, in the pilot's seat, started the engine, and we lifted off, turning south. Or at least, I thought it was south. I'd never seen Midgar from this high up before, and I wasn't completely oriented. 

"Isn't it about time you started briefing us?" Mirror asked. 

Tseng remained formidably silent for a few moments more before capitulating. "We have a hostage situation at the Newtech Casting plant outside of Junon." 

"Newtech," Mirror repeated. "That's . . . critical parts for the new mako-kinetic reactor assemblies. Him, again?" 

"So it appears," Tseng said. 

"Knife was supposed to be there," Cissnei observed. 

"And Knife is now in the military hospital at the Junon base," Tseng provided. "She triggered a trap that poisoned her with no less than eight different substances, all of which resist Esuna spells. The doctors say her life is not in danger, but it will be some time before she is more than intermittently conscious." 

"Bombs, and now poison traps," Mirror said. "Our friend appears not to like confrontations. Why would he suddenly start taking hostages?" 

"There is more," Tseng said. "Thorvald Arnarson is currently in Junon on business." 

That meant absolutely nothing to me, but from Mirror's expression, it did to him. 

"That's still only circumstantial evidence," Cissnei said. 

"Indeed. The first thing I intend to do when we reach Junon is attempt to locate him, while the military maintains its cordon around the plant. That should prove . . . something, one way or the other." 

"Um, can I have a little background here?" I asked. 

"A little bit," Mirror said, and Cissnei giggled. But Mirror did take the time to explain what was going on, in a handful of succinct sentences. 

"It sounds like a bad movie plot," I said when he was done. "I mean, _twins_? And they just happen to be related to President Shinra?" 

"And we are under orders not to kill the innocent one. Otherwise, this might have been resolved by now," Tseng said. 

"Not when we still haven't found Erik," Mirror said. 

I bit my tongue, trying _not_ to think about this whole business from a corny movie plot perspective. And feeling just a little sorry for Rufus Shinra, who was apparently better than his father about at least _trying_ to do the right thing. Well, the young man I'd met on my way to the Tower that one morning hadn't seemed like such a bad person. Smug and arrogant, yes, but not _evil_. 

"What if he's dead?" I asked. "Erik, I mean." _Or what if it's Thorvald who's dead, and Erik took his place? How would you ever tell?_ But I'd promised I wasn't going to treat this like a corny movie plot. And anyway, it didn't matter whether Erik and Thorvald Arnarson had switched places or not. We just had to find the guilty man. It didn't matter what his name was. 

"Then the moment we find proof, things will simplify themselves," Tseng said. 

No one seemed to want to talk after that, so I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes and tried to remember what I'd been taught so far about handling hostage situations. _Shoot them all and let the gods sort them out_ was often a favoured Shinra tactic, but I had to admit that it didn't sit well with me. I'd do it if I had to, but I decided that I would prefer something with a little more finesse. After all, if they just wanted to kill everyone, they could gas the place and save us a lot of trouble and risk. 

It took us three hours to get to Junon, where Tseng set the helicopter down on a pad crowning the military base. There were people waiting for us, too: Admiral Arcanol, who looked exactly like the picture they'd shown us that first day, some guy in a suit, and a couple of army guys, who took our bags and vanished somewhere into the base with him. 

"What's the situation?" Tseng asked. 

Arcanol shook his head. "You're not going to believe this. _I_ barely believe this. The Arnarsons turned themselves in." 

"Which one?" Tseng asked. 

"Both of them." 

_What?_


	9. Chapter 9

**Tseng**

The two men who were visible on the screens in the security center weren't identical. Not quite. One was plump, well-dressed, and clean-shaven. The other was thin and bearded, with rougher clothes and a scar on his forehead that drew his left eyebrow up toward the hairline, giving him a permanent quizzical look. Neither looked quite perfectly like the photographs, either. 

"I take it that the bearded one claims to be Erik Arnarson and the other is Thorvald," I said to Arcanol, who nodded. "And if they are both here, who is at the plant?" 

"We aren't sure," said the businessman who had met us at the helipad, whom I recognized as the manager of the Newtech Casting plant. "I suppose it's impossible that they're actually triplets . . . ?" 

"What made them turn themselves in?" Rufus said. "Surely you haven't been publicizing the details of what's happening at the plant." 

"Actually, they both came to the police station together for a completely different reason," Arcanol said. "Something about a missing person." 

"Hmm. Cissnei, take Elena with you to question Thorvald. Mirror, come with me." I didn't dare glance at Rufus. Fortunately, he was a good actor, or I would never have dared suggest this imposture to him in the first place. He fell in behind me without saying anything, and I was sure his posture and expression were impeccable. 

I knew the layout of Junon Base well enough not to need one of Arcanol's military minions to show me the way to the area where the Arnarson twins were being kept under guard in separate interrogation rooms. The guards snapped to attention when they saw us. It was odd, since people's reactions to members of Administrative Research were normally more nervous than respectful. Perhaps Arcanol had instructed these men specifically on how to behave. 

"Which one is in which room?" Elena asked aloud, saving me the trouble of finding a way to phrase it that didn't make me sound like a fool. 

"The one with the beard's in here," said one of the guards. 

"Thank you," Cissnei said with a smile. They all followed her with their eyes as she went to the other door. 

Rufus followed me into the room guarded by the man who had spoken. It was typically barren, with two folding chairs, a cheap table, and no other furnishings. I sat down opposite Erik Arnarson while Rufus positioned himself against the wall beside the door and casually let his jacket fall the least bit open to reveal the butt of his shotgun. Normally he wouldn't have bothered with such a blatant physical threat. He really was burying himself in the part of Mirror, junior Turk. 

"Mr. Arnarson," I said. "I am Tseng of the Turks. I would like to ask you a few questions, if I may." 

Erik Arnarson snorted. "Guess I don't have to ask _you_ if you know who I am. They scramble you here from Midgar?" 

I sighed. "Let me rephrase my request. I have questions. You will answer them. Otherwise, I may regrettably have to cause you some discomfort." 

"Doesn't take much to get you to take the kid gloves off, does it? Okay, ask, and I'll do my best to answer. Don't suppose I'm getting out of here until I do. No matter who I'm related to." 

At least he understood his situation. "Thank you. First of all, I understand that you approached the Junon police about a missing person. Who is it that went missing?" 

"My nephew. Step-nephew. Whatever you call your brother's step-son. Thor brought the kid with him to Junon, and then the kid pulled a fast one." 

Interesting, but I couldn't see the relevance. Still, continuing the line of questioning might disarm him a bit. "Does he have a history of running away?" 

Erik shook his head. "Not since he came to live with Thor, anyway. Nice enough kid, mostly. Wants to be an actor." 

"I believe your brother has more than one step-child . . . ?" 

"His new wife has two girls, too, but they're younger than the boy. Hell, _she's_ older than we are, and Thor'd have had to be banging her when we were around eleven for Lennis to be his real son." 

Lennis? While I found many Eastern names unaesthetic, that one was worse than most. What an unlucky boy. 

"When we hit the police station, they told us we were wanted for questioning about what happened to that place outside Rocket Town, and being good citizens and having, as far as we knew, nothing to do with any of that, we agreed to stick around until they had their answers. We didn't expect it to involve you guys." Erik Arnarson was either trying to distract me, or volunteering information in the hope of speeding things up. Well, I wasn't so easily distractible. 

"Where have you been for the past several years?" I asked. "We attempted to find you after the bombing, but no one seemed to know where you were, and your residence of record has been vacant for quite some time." 

Erik rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I guess it has. I got tired of the rat race a couple of years ago, and built myself a cabin in the mountains north of here. There's a hamlet with a general store on the road between Midgar and Junon I visit a couple of times a month to pick up my mail and buy the things I can't make for myself. Unless you thought to ask there, or talked to Thor, you probably wouldn't have been able to find me." 

One mystery resolved, several more to go. "And you were there at the time the facility near Rocket Town was bombed?" 

"That's right." 

"And yet this was taken at there, not long before the explosion." I took out the folder, opened it, showed him the photo. Erik looked at it. 

"Well, shit," he said at last. "Not me, and not Thor, but I can see how you'd think he might be." 

"He gave his name as Erik Arnarson, and used your relationship with President Shinra to talk his way past the security guards. Do you have any idea who he could be?" 

Arnarson shook his head. "No kin of mine. We have few enough left, but I expect you know that already. No one I recognize. I don't know how a man could disguise himself so well, but I figure you'd know more about that than I do." 

"There is a good chance he is within your circle of acquaintances, or your brother's. Otherwise, his disguise would be less perfect. Can you think of anyone who would combine a desire to strike at Shinra with the sort of callousness required to do so by attacking low-level employees?" I was reaching now, and knew it. 

"None at all . . . but that's how it always works, isn't it? When the media interviews the murderer's neighbours, they always say, _we had no idea_ and _he seemed like such a nice man_." 

Rufus snorted softly, and I felt the corner of my mouth twitch with amusement, because it was all absolutely true. 

"All right," I said, rising from my chair. "Please wait here to be escorted off the base. Please do not leave Junon until you are told it is acceptable for you to do so, and leave your contact details with the person who requests them." I slipped out of the room, with Rufus at my heels. 

"What did you think?" I asked my putative trainee once the door was closed behind us. 

"If he was lying, he's a better actor than I am," Rufus said. "And we appear to be back at square one, in terms of figuring out who's behind this. Unless Cissnei had better luck." 

I nodded agreement. 

Cissnei and Elena emerged from the other interrogation room a few moments later. Cissnei caught my eye and shook her head. She hadn't found out anything of value, then. Which meant that our next step was obvious. 

We could have taken the helicopter out to the plant, but I thought a ground vehicle would be less obvious, and Arcanol was willing to provide, along with a driver. We also took the plant manager, a Mr. Barker, with us, since there were still gaps in our information and I didn't want to waste time questioning his at the headquarters when we could do it en route. 

"Tell me what happened at the plant," I said as soon as we were on the road. 

Barker pinched the bridge of his nose. "Someone got sleeping gas into the ventilation system, I think. All I know for certain is that I passed out, and when I woke up, I was tied up and had a paper bag over my head." 

"Go on," I said when he paused. 

"I don't know how long I was in that position for. It _felt_ like hours, but I had no way of telling time. Eventually, someone came, kicked me in the ribs, and asked if I was awake. When I didn't answer, I was grabbed by my collar and pulled to my feet. I couldn't exactly not react to that, so he immediately figured out that I was awake. He . . ." Barker looked down. " . . . slapped me around a bit after that, and dragged me some distance. I don't know exactly where we ended up at first, but after a while, he stopped and kicked some other people, and they . . . shouted various things, which I suppose is not unexpected when one has just been kicked by someone one can't see. I recognized some of the voices as members of the plant's staff. Then that man asked me if I wanted to live. When I said yes, he dragged me out of there again, to a place just inside the plant's entrance. He took the bag off my head and cut the tape binding my ankles and told me to go tell the people outside that they had a day to get someone here who was capable of negotiating for Shinra, or he would start killing hostages." 

"How long ago was that?" I asked, trying to keep my voice gentle. Members of the management staff weren't always the most emotionally stable when confronted with direct violence. 

Barker checked his wristwatch. "About four hours." 

We had until tomorrow, then. Good. "And this man. Describe him." 

"Mostly identical to Erik Arnarson, except cleanshaven and with no scar. Too thin to be his brother, though." 

Which was in agreement with everything else we had learned so far, making it less than useful. 

Our vehicle rumbled to a halt on the cracked asphalt of a large parking lot outside the plant building. From the outside, the architecture of the place lacked finesse, rather reminding me of a warehouse with smokestacks. Leviathan only knew what it was like on the inside. Barricades had been set up along one edge of the parking lot, and there were a number of infantry milling around behind them in an organized way. 

"So what's the drill?" Elena asked as she stepped down onto the pavement. 

"We will start with reconnaissance," I said. 

"Which means we make a list of potential entrances, then try two or three different ones," Cissnei filled in. "And hope our friend hasn't had a chance to booby trap everything." 

The front door was a bad idea, naturally. We needed to avoid notice, and if our terrorist—there was no point in calling him anything else now—had any sense at all, he would be watching the front door, and the side door, and the loading dock. Dismantling the ground-level fire exits from the outside to avoid tripping the alarms would involve cutting through sheet metal, which was bound to be noticed. That left the fire escape, which led up to a door with a handle and (according to the building plans) no alarm wiring, a roof exit, and some windows in the office area which were just large enough for Elena, as the smallest member of our group, to fit through. 

Thus, we had three entrances, and three people who could enter—risking Rufus here was out of the question, and he knew it as well as I did. He would remain on the outside as mission coordinator, the job I would normally have taken myself. After some thought, I allotted the fire escape to Cissnei and took the roof exit for myself. I wanted an overview of the building's interior, and what we knew about the place suggested that this was the best way to get it. 

I used the railing of the fire escape, and then the top edge of the door Cissnei held ajar for me, to boost myself up to the roof. It felt as though climbing was a little more difficult than it had been the last time I had done something like this. _Perhaps I'm getting old._

Once on the roof, I used the smokestacks and the HVAC unit to orient myself and find the trapdoor. It was locked, but said lock was simple and mechanical and took me less than a minute to pick, after which I lifted the trap and climbed down to the catwalk below. 

I was up among the exposed underpinnings of the ceiling of a very large room that smelled of hot metal. There were a few lights on, providing enough illumination to let me see the large machines that squatted silent and quiescent on the floor. The only area where most of the lights seemed to be on was over near the doorway that should, based on its location, lead out into areas like the lunchroom and the administrative offices. 

I pulled out my gun, holding it at ready, and made my way slowly along the catwalk, trying to avoid drawing any noise from the metal surface. There were people in here somewhere—I could hear quiet moans if I stopped and listened. Most likely, those were the hostages, but there might also be one or more guards on hand. That was what we needed to find out: how many guards, and how positioned. Once we knew, we would also know how to deal with the situation and rescue the hostages. And we did need to rescue them if we didn't want the work on the mako-kinetic reactors severely delayed, because the plant's engineers and advanced technicians were all among those taken. 

As I approached the doors, I frowned, narrowing my eyes. I could see some of the hostages now, bound with heavy tape and with bags over their heads, as the plant manager had suggested. I could also see a few figures who were _not_ hostages. Three of them. Two wore identical dark clothing with faintly luminescent bluish stripes—a uniform? Of an odd sort, perhaps. It seemed to be derived from SOLDIER equipment, with helmets, armour across the chest, and knee guards, but no protection for abdomen or thighs. Still, the armour they did have would make it more difficult to drop either of them immediately with a single shot, unless I was able to hit an artery. 

The third man was our doppelganger. Gazing down at him, I could tell I wasn't looking at either of the Arnarson brothers, but he was very like. _Very_ like. He spoke to one of the helmeted men briefly, abused one of the prisoners a bit, and then wandered out of my line of sight again. 

If these were the only three guards, we could probably handle them, but I needed to be sure these were all the prisoners. The worst possible outcome at the moment would be for us to take two of the enemy out while the third slipped past us and went to kill someone vital. 

I padded along the catwalk, watching the area below and wishing for better light—even though I knew I should be grateful for any light at all. Those helmets might easily have night vision built into them, the way the ones for the army regulars and SOLDIER Thirds did. I had my night vision goggles in my inner suit pocket, but putting them on would have been a distraction, which in turn was risky under these circumstances. 

A little further on, I stopped in my tracks. What was _that_? It looked almost like . . . 

I found a ladder and climbed down from the catwalk, hoping all the time that I was wrong, but the colour of the reddish-brown splash on the wall only became more familiar as I approached it. Blood. Several hours old, and dried. The surface of the wall itself was scarred in a way that suggested a slashing weapon, and now that I was looking for them, I could see marks on the floor where something, or someone, had been dragged off around the side of a piece of machinery. 

I followed the trail. It didn't take long to find the corpse, which was dressed in a suit. I used the muzzle of my gun to lift the head so that I could try to match the face to the photos I had studied while we had been on the way here from Midgar. 

The slack face of Barker the manager, eyes glazed with death, stared back at me. 

I froze with shock for only half a second, but that was enough. 

The dart took me below the ear, puncturing a vein and unloading most of its unpleasant cargo before I could pull it out. My fingers were already getting numb by the time it struck the floor. 

I fell to my knees, vision blurring. Trying desperately to keep hold of my gun with fingers that felt like they belonged to an empty glove, even though there was no way I would be able to raise it to aim. 

"How very _convenient_ of you," someone said past the ringing in my ears, just before I blacked out.


	10. Chapter 10

**Rufus**

"They've got booby traps on the doors between the office area and the factory floor," Elena said, almost pouting. "After what happened to Knife, I wasn't about to disturb them. There's no one in the office area." 

"Right," I said. Technically, she should have been waiting and reporting this to Tseng, but Tseng wasn't back yet, and I was watching the tracer in his PHS moving around the building on the screen of _my_ PHS. Well, Mirror's PHS. Rufus' was in my inner pocket, with the ringtone silenced. I couldn't have left it behind, but at the same time I needed to be very, very careful about where and when I checked it. Mirror the rookie Turk would never have been carrying a very expensive unhardened civilian PHS of the latest design, which meant I couldn't let Elena see it. 

Elena and I stood together in silence for several minutes, at the foot of the fire escape, watching Tseng's and Cissnei's traces move around a wireframe model of the factory. An incomplete model. We had the building blueprints and a list of the machinery installed, but we hadn't had the time to combine the two, and even that wouldn't have accounted for mobile objects like mini-forklifts or empty containers. 

I frowned. It looked like Tseng was climbing down a ladder towards the factory floor. I'd been expecting him to stay on the catwalks. I gritted my teeth and forced myself not to squeeze the PHS—I'd already destroyed one of them that way, not long after I'd been released from the hospital. Breaking this one now would be a very bad move. 

_Tseng is a professional,_ I told myself. _He'll be alright._ And then was angry at myself for needing even that much reassurance. 

Cissnei's dot was moving back towards the fire escape, and sure enough, she popped through the door a few moments later and half-climbed, half-slid down the ladder until she was standing beside us. 

"Ugh, the whole place smells of hot metal even with the equipment turned off," she said. "Assuming it _is_ all off. Anyway, they've got the hostages taped up near the main door to the offices. I think there's more than one guard, but I didn't get a good look. Is the boss still in there?" 

"Looks like it," Elena said, and Cissnei craned her neck to peer at my PHS. 

"That's odd," she said. "He's stopped. And at floor level." 

"Listening in on a conversation or waiting for a guard to move," I suggested. 

"Maybe." Cissnei didn't look any happier than I felt, but we both knew that making a PHS call to someone on reconnaissance in anything but the direst emergency was a very stupid risk. 

At last, Tseng moved again, back up a ladder and along a catwalk. He seemed to be headed for the trapdoor in the roof. I waited impatiently as he dropped from the roof's edge to the fire escape and then climbed down. 

"What were you doing in there?" I asked as I put my PHS away. 

"There was something I needed to investigate, rookie." 

I grabbed my shotgun and fired a burst into his stomach. Elena looked appalled, but Cissnei had her shuriken out, meaning that she'd noticed too. 

Tseng would never address me as "rookie". 

"Who are you, and where is Tseng?" I snapped. 

The fake Tseng's face twisted into an entirely not-Tseng-like smirk. "Liath the Grey," he said. "And . . . not here. Also, didn't anyone ever tell you to check for body armour before shooting someone in the stomach?" 

I cursed and tried to bring my weapon up for a shot at the doppelganger's head, but Liath pushed it down with such force that the stock of the gun bruised my leg. He was stronger than me—and faster, judging from the way he immediately dodged Cissnei's shuriken. Maybe on the level of a SOLDIER Second? 

Elena had her gun out now too, and she moved sideways, trying to pin Liath between us. I knew it wasn't going to work, but I went along. In the meanwhile, Liath's face looked disturbingly like it was melting, going from Tseng-like to . . . light-skinned, mousy-haired, and utterly forgettable except for the silver mako eyes. But he was still wearing Tseng's clothes, all the way down to the polished shoes. I wondered uncomfortably if that meant that the real Tseng was currently in his undershorts, and beat down the very small part of me that wanted a look. 

I brought my shotgun up, aiming at Liath's head, and he threw a flashbang right in my face. I dropped the Randall and put both hands over my streaming eyes, shoving them up under my glasses, because the pain was excruciating. Damnable enhanced senses! 

I was still locked in self-imposed blindness when Cissnei said, "He's gone." 

"And we still don't know where Tseng is," Elena said. "Are we going to have to leave him?" 

"No," I said, lowering my hands and forcing my eyes open. My vision was a bit blurry, but I was able to tell Elena from Cissnei. 

"That man was enhanced," Cissnei said. "And he isn't alone. We're going to have to call in SOLDIER. We can't afford to try to do this quietly now." 

"Not yet," I said firmly. 

"Mirror, don't," Elena said. "I know Tseng's your friend as well as your mentor, but Cissnei's senior now." 

I ignored her, instead turning to hold Cissnei's eyes with mine as I removed my glasses and folded them into the breast pocket of my jacket. "If Sephiroth or Valentine were available, I would tell you to go ahead, but as I recall, they're up near Icicle Inn, dealing with a malboro infestation. By the time either of them got here, we would be past our friend's one-day deadline for talking to someone in charge. What we'll get if we call for SOLDIER is a handful of Seconds and Thirds from the Junon base, and if they're here instead of out working on our monster problem they're either incompetent or in rough shape." 

"Then what do you suggest instead, sir?" Cissnei asked, and Elena's mouth fell open. I could just about hear the "wait a minute—_sir?!_" percolating in her brain. 

I smirked. "They want to talk to someone in charge, so let's arrange for them to do exactly that. We'll leave the site for about half an hour and go to the nearest place where I can change my clothes and wash the dye out of my hair, then come back." 

"So you're going to open negotiations and stall them until Vincent gets back?" Cissnei said. 

"So I'm going to open negotiations and distract them. You go in the front way with me as my bodyguard. Elena sneaks back onto the site and gets in via the fire escape. I'll get Liath, or whoever's in charge in there, into her line of fire. Having their leader dead should buy us a few seconds of confusion—enough to take out the rest of them." _I hope._ I was used to planning corporate takeovers, not hostage rescues. 

"I'm going to be shooting from the catwalks?" Elena said. 

I nodded. "If it's Liath, it has to be an eye or throat shot. You can't guarantee you're going to get through enhanced bone with a pistol round, and we already know about his body armour. _Can you do it?_" 

She closed her eyes. Swallowed. Opened them again, and gave me a firm nod. "I can. I have to." 

"That's what I wanted to hear." Or close enough. It would have been nice if she'd been a little more confident, but I'd seen her shoot. She was good. 

Cissnei, on the other hand, was deadly with her shuriken within twenty feet or so, but less so at greater distances. It made sense to make her my bodyguard, and send Elena up into the catwalks. 

"Let's go," I added abruptly. I didn't want to waste time, not while Tseng was still at risk. 

Fifteen minutes later, I was adjusting the lapels of my _white_ suit, making sure that the jacket hid both the shotgun and the bulletproof vest underneath. The vest wasn't something that belonged to Mirror the Turk, unfortunately. I'd received my first one the day after my mother had died, and been measured for a new one at every birthday. Since I'd thought it was a wise precaution, I'd never argued about it, but now I wondered who was responsible. The practicality of it suggested Veld. Or . . . Tseng. 

_Stop that,_ I told myself. _He isn't dead. Not yet._ And he wasn't going to be dead, because I was going to rescue him. 

_Fancy yourself a knight on a white chocobo now, do you?_ I sneered at myself in the mirror the hotel had mounted over the dresser. People like me weren't heroes. We eviscerated others with words and contracts and knives in the dark, in pursuit of our own selfish ends. 

Tseng made a highly improbable damsel in distress, anyway. If they really were keeping him tied up in his underclothes, he was going to be quite annoyed when I finally did find him. 

I used the mirror to adjust my expression. Calm, confident, arrogant. Chin high, shoulders back. I needed to look like a man who knew what he wanted, and would do whatever it took to get it. 

It was all lies, of course. A facade. Smoke and . . . mirrors. I no longer wanted quite the same things I had wanted before my father's death, but there wasn't enough of Shenlong left in me to distort my dreams to match his, either. All I knew was what I _didn't_ want, and losing Tseng was high on that list. Just below my own death. 

I would give up the Shinra Corporation to save Tseng. 

I froze, staring into the mirror, but the words rang true in my mind. I would give up Shinra to save Tseng. I would give up almost _anything_ to save Tseng. 

_Face it, you love him._ And for a moment, there was a shadow standing behind me, a man who wore pearls and the flowing dress of a bygone era. Shenlong. _You may be uncertain whether you lust for him, but that is an entirely different matter._

The phantom vanished when I blinked. I had a feeling I was going to be haunted by the ghost of that wretched Cetra demigod for the rest of my days . . . but I could worry about it later. Just like I could worry about the exact form of relationship I wanted with Tseng later. Right now, I needed to save him. 

I corrected my expression again and stepped out into the hallway, where Cissnei and Elena were waiting. Elena had changed from her suit to the covert ops uniform—what Reno called "shoot'em-in-the-dark clothes", with visual and thermal camouflage patterns. 

"Let's go," I said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to have chosen "dealing with malboros in the frozen north" as my go-to excuse for why a specific SOLDIER isn't available at any given time. Shrug.


	11. Chapter 11

**Elena**

_So, are you really Rufus Shinra? Or Mirror?_ It wasn't really a question I could ask—not when Cissnei was _treating_ him like he was Rufus. Were they two people who swapped identities whenever it was useful? Or just one man who had been disguising himself as a Turk . . . and really, why would the President want to do that? It wasn't as though he'd been playing around. Mirror might have gotten to slack off on some of the lectures, but so far, he had joined us for all the practical parts of our training—hand-to-hand combat, piloting, even the hands-on poisons and interrogation lessons. He'd been thrown to the mats over and over again, bruised black and blue, even sprained his wrist at one point and had to keep it taped up for a couple of days even after Tseng used a Restore materia on him. President Rufus Shinra shouldn't have to put up with any of that. Even if he'd wanted to get in shape or practice martial arts, there had to be a thousand ways he could do it without his own Turks turning him into one solid bruise. 

_This is driving me crazy._

Mirror—_Rufus, have to think of him as Rufus or I might screw up_—anyway, _that man_ wasn't even paying any attention to me. He was sitting there beside me in the back seat of the car, but I could sense the tension in him. 

"Are you okay?" _Blurting things out again, Elena—you should wear a muzzle,_ I told myself savagely even as the words escaped. 

He turned to look at me, blue eyes lit from within—_but that's mako corona!_ Like I'd seen that morning when I'd met the real Rufus (was he?) out walking his guard hound. Why did Rufus Shinra have mako eyes? Did Mirror—had he washed out of SOLDIER, or had he allowed this to be done to him, or was he really a separate person at all? 

"I shouldn't be doing this," he said, in a low voice. "It's a stupid risk. Tseng's going to be angry when he discovers that I took it. If my father were still alive, I'd be spending the rest of my life under house arrest somewhere out of the way, where I couldn't pull such a stupid stunt again. Nibelheim, maybe." 

"I'm not even sure where Nibelheim is," I admitted. 

"In the mountains south of Rocket Town. Site of one of the early experimental mako reactors, and the hometown of General Sephiroth's little blond protege. Picturesque despite the reactor, but extremely backward." He seemed quite happy to take the conversation off on a tangent. 

"It doesn't sound like much of a place," I said. "And we might all get sent there if this fails." 

"I doubt it. Turks never end up in simple exile. But Veld can't shoot me, and he won't shoot you for following orders." 

"_Are_ they orders?" I asked him. _Are you Rufus Shinra, or are you Mirror the Turk playing a part?_

"They're orders," Cissnei said from up front. 

"Then you're—" I bit down on my lower lip. _Do not blurt that out, Elena. Do _not_._

"Mirror the Turk was someone Tseng and I invented so that I could unobtrusively keep an eye on the investigation that spawned this mess," Rufus said. 

"And that's why they wouldn't give you any dangerous missions." And Cissnei and Tseng had both known. And Veld—there was no way he would have let something like this go on right under his nose. The other seniors had probably known too. 

"And that's why they wouldn't give me any risky missions," Rufus agreed. "I apologize for deceiving you." 

"Don't," I said, surprising myself a little. "I mean, a lot of Turks have something in their past that they want to hide, right? It just happens that in your case, it was your _whole_ past." 

Rufus snorted, but I thought I saw a spark of genuine amusement in his eyes. 

"We're about to pull into the parking lot," Cissnei said warningly. That was my signal to duck, so that anyone watching from the factory wouldn't be able to spot me through a window. 

Rufus and Cissnei got out of the car on the side facing the building, while I slipped out the far side and used other vehicles and a drainage ditch to stay hidden as I snuck around the side of the factory to the fire escape, climbed up, and let myself in. 

There was dust up here, and I wished Cissnei had mentioned it. I had to pinch my nose to keep from sneezing. I was standing on a sort of landing just inside the fire escape, with catwalks leading away in either direction along the wall, and one pointing straight across the room. Quickly, I oriented myself and began to creep towards the front of the building, keeping low. I could hear the quiet sounds of people shifting, and the occasional muffled moan. 

Finally, I reached a point where I had a view of the hostages. There were a bunch of people in coveralls, some others in polo shirts or casual blouses, and a couple in suits, all of them with duct tape around their wrists and ankles and paper bags on their heads. 

It took me a moment to spot the other prisoner, who had been placed a little off to one side by himself. Apparently Tseng wore white boxers and an undershirt beneath his Turk suit. He had a large, dark bruise on one thigh, but didn't seem to be otherwise injured, although he was lying very still. Waiting for opportunity, surely. Surely. 

I swallowed and knelt down on the catwalk, because I'd decided even before entering the building that that position would offer the best compromise between mobility and steadying myself for shooting. I couldn't afford to miss. I also couldn't afford not to shoot at all because I couldn't get a good angle, and I didn't know exactly where Liath would be standing. 

I was starting to hear voices out front. Some kind of discussion was taking place. Hopefully that meant we would be able to get this show on the road soon. 

The door to the offices opened, and a guard came through. He (or at least I thought it was a he, but the weird armoured uniform hid the details I would have needed to be able to tell for certain) began inspecting the prisoners, taking his time as he walked around. When he got to Tseng, he kicked him in the side. Tseng made no sound or movement in reply, although I could see from the way his body rocked that he was holding himself rigid. 

I think it was ten minutes before the door opened again. It felt like hours, though. A guard came through, then Cissnei, then Rufus, then Liath. Or at least, I hoped it was Liath—what if they could all do that freaky face-changing thing that he could? What if they were a . . . a _hive-mind_, or something? I wished I'd never let my then-boyfriend take me to see that stupid movie. 

I swallowed. _Keep your mind on the job, Elena!_ The waiting part was just so much more difficult without Mirror (_Rufus!_) beside me, muttering snarky comments that made me smile. He seemed like a different person when I was looking down on him from this angle and seeing his white clothes and hard expression. It was a different hard expression, somehow, from the one Mirror sometimes wore. Or maybe I'd just never known him that well. It had been less than a month since we'd met. 

I aimed my Quicksilver steadily at Liath, waiting for him to turn to face me and expose a vulnerable part of his body. He wasn't wearing a helmet, thank Bahamut. So this wasn't an impossible job, just a very difficult one. 

"You see, Mr. President? They're all in one piece. No injuries that a Cure spell or three won't fix," Liath was saying. 

"Possibly not." Rufus was sneering now. "You still haven't answered my other questions, though, have you?" 

"Other questions?" 

"Who are you, why are you here, and what do you want? It isn't as though we can open negotiations without some idea of the direction we're going in." 

"I've given you my name," Liath said. "It doesn't matter who we represent. As for what we want . . . We will trade the hostages for medical-grade mako." 

Rufus' eyes narrowed. "How much medical-grade mako?" 

"A hundred gallons should be sufficient." 

Rufus barked a laugh. "There isn't that much in all of Shinra." 

"Then you had better come up with a way of getting more fast, hadn't you, Mr. President?" 

"From what I understand, it doesn't work that way," Rufus said, voice extremely dry. "It takes a month to purify mako to full medical grade, and we have no reason to keep even one-tenth of the amount you want on hand—after all, it's only needed for injecting into SOLDIERs. Less-pure grades work well enough for everything else. I may be President of the Shinra Electric Power Company, but I can't alter the laws of chemistry and physics." He paused for a beat, and tilted his head slightly. "What do you want it for, anyway? You can't possibly have that many enhanced personnel." 

Liath smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know?" 

I was wondering how much mako was needed per SOLDIER per shot when I realized that Rufus was moving slowly across the front of the group of hostages on purpose, letting Liath watch him as he examined each one. Making Liath _turn_, slowly, so that he was facing more toward me. I swallowed, and adjusted the angle of the Quicksilver. The moment I had the perfect shot, I was going to take it. That was my job, and it was the only way to help Tseng, and Rufus himself. Not to mention all those other people lying there tied up. 

_Wait for it,_ I told myself. _Wait for it . . ._ It was like any shooting competition that involved moving targets. You had to pull the trigger at exactly the right moment if you didn't want to lose points. And the moment wasn't quite yet. The moment was . . . was . . . 

Liath turned away, back towards the door, and I almost screamed in frustration. Almost. Even though it would have been terribly unprofessional. If he'd been unenhanced, I might have shot anyway, aiming at the back of his head, but I told myself again that I couldn't risk having the bullet bounce off bone under these circumstances. 

"Haven't you seen enough yet?" Liath was saying. 

"That isn't for you to determine." Rufus filled the words with ego and attitude, but I knew he was just stalling for time. 

Liath walked over to Tseng and very deliberately kicked him in the side. Then several things happened very quickly. 

First, Tseng uncoiled, throwing himself against Liath's legs and making him stagger. 

Second, Rufus grabbed Liath's arm and spun him further around. 

Thirdly, Liath's throat tracked right past the end of my gun, and I squeezed the trigger. 

The bullet produced a nice spray of blood. _Carotid artery,_ I thought as Cissnei kicked one of the other guards and took his gun away, and Rufus jammed a hold-out knife (how had whoever had checked him for weapons missed that?) into Liath's eye socket as insurance, then ducked behind a machine. 

The guards' guns were full auto, and Cissnei had a line of bullets stitched back and forth across the abdomen of the man she'd disarmed before he could do anything else. The other guard had found a protective piece of machinery of his own and was raising his weapon to return fire. Unfortunately for him, all I had to do to get a straight shot at him was shuffle a bit to my right. My first shot bounced off his chestplate, but the second hit his gun and made it slough off a couple of what I hoped were important parts, and the third and fourth hit his arm and his stomach. He still managed to bring the gun up again, but it failed to fire, and a moment later, Cissnei was on him. 

_It's over,_ I thought, flopping back on my ass on the catwalk. _It's over, and somehow we did manage to save everyone._

I was shaking as the adrenaline in my system ebbed, but at the same time, I'd never felt so alive.


	12. Chapter 12

**Tseng**

I hid a sigh of relief as the bag was pulled from my head. My training had allowed me to orient myself somewhat and track opponents using hearing alone, but it had not been enjoyable. Rufus, kneeling beside me, used a blood-encrusted knife to cut loose the gag that had been forced on me. He said nothing, but he was unable to completely hide the concern in his eyes. Concern that should not have been there. The President of Shinra had no business worrying about an employee. Mirror the Turk might have had the luxury of worrying about his mentor, but Rufus was wearing white right now, not blue. 

"Cut me loose and find me some clothes, and I should be able to resume my duties immediately, sir." _I'm not seriously injured,_ was the implication. 

"Tseng . . ." Unexpectedly, I found myself wrapped in a fierce hug. With my hands still bound behind my back, there was little I could do to fend it off, unless I wanted to head-butt my employer. 

"Rufus, you must not," I whispered in his ear. 

"We haven't cut any of the others loose yet," he whispered back. "There's no one here to see but . . . family. I haven't completely lost my mind yet, but I can't . . . I can't . . ." His arms tightened around me convulsively. "Something in me needs to be sure that you're here, that you're real. I . . . since _that_ . . . I see things sometimes. Mostly in mirrors. But I can't touch them." 

One last deep breath, and then he let go of me and leaned over to cut the tape on my wrists. He was businesslike as he placed the knife in my hands and stood, straightening his jacket as he left me to free my ankles myself. A bag thudded to the floor beside me: the luggage I had brought from Midgar. 

"Sorry, sir, but we haven't found the clothes Liath took yet," Cissnei said. "You're going to have to make do without a jacket." 

Or shoes, since I had brought no extras. Or my guns. Well, I had found myself in more awkward positions than this, with worse equipment. Trousers and shirt and tie with stocking feet it would be. 

"Report," I told Cissnei as I opened the bag and began to pull out those sorely-needed clothes. "Begin with your infiltration of the factory." 

"Yes, sir." We wandered a little way from the group of captured factory personnel so that we could talk without being overheard. 

I was gratified to hear that Rufus had spotted my doppelganger immediately, but less happy about everything else, and I really didn't like the conclusions I was drawing. An enhanced shapeshifter, a mysterious organization that seemed opposed to Shinra, or at least to the direction the Shinra Electric Power Company was starting to head in under Rufus' guidance, and if they wanted medical-grade mako by the hundred-gallon tank, either they were looking for a long-term supply, or they had multiple enhanced personnel on a level with the SOLDIER Firsts. And _we had never heard of them_. That worried me most at all. Veld would never have left me in the dark about something like this. 

"Conjectures?" I asked Cissnei. 

She shrugged. "They're getting Shinra supplies from somewhere—the two guards were carrying standard infantry rifles and wearing modified Third Class helmets. The rifles might have been stolen, but the helmets are rare, and they're of the current design, not the one that they used during the war." 

"So someone knows. Or knew." This was getting uglier by the moment. 

"I'd bet on 'knew'," Cissnei said. "Otherwise, why would they be trying to extort supplies?" 

More than ever, I wanted to sigh. There were still at least a dozen projects of Hojo's that we hadn't been able to trace. Some of the data just wasn't in the computer, and there was some evidence that he had fed quite a bit of paper into the incinerator the night he had gone mad. Not to mention that our department had obfuscated a lot of purchases for him, and some of the Turks who had done that work were dead. I'd put Katana on trying to trace the man's travel itinerary for the past five years, but Hojo had held at least one passport under a false name. 

And this might not even have been Hojo's project. It could have been something of Hollander's, or even the creation of the AVALANCHE scientist Fuhito. Or the work of someone we didn't even know about. 

To me, though, it smelled like Hojo. Hojo, the late President Regulus Shinra, and possibly Heidegger. The Public Safety Department's secret records had been considered much lower priority than the ones from the Science Department, and so were mostly still waiting for decryption. We might have to revisit that. 

Heidegger had never liked SOLDIER. It had always galled him that it was its own department, that even with Lazard gone and Sephiroth as an unofficial acting director with none of the authority that should have gone with the role, Public Safety hadn't been able to absorb its smaller but more prestigious cousin. Given half an opportunity, he would have backed a separate enhancement project. 

We'd have to have the bodies of the guards and the man who had called himself Liath the Grey autopsied by the Science Department, in the hope of identifying and tracing them. 

There was a sudden influx of regular troops and local police through the door of the factory, with Elena in the lead, and Rufus picked his way back among the machines to join us. 

"I've arranged for the bodies to be taken to the Junon laboratory, and the other prisoners will be debriefed," he said. 

I nodded. "Thank you, sir. Cissnei, take Elena and see if our friends left anything else behind, especially documents or PHSs. And try to find my shoes." 

"Will do, boss." Cissnei gave me a little mock salute and ran off. 

There was an operator's console for some piece of machinery or other a couple of steps away from me. It had a plastic chair bolted to a rail in front of it, and I sat down gingerly, straddling it. My feet were already aching from the hardness of the cement. 

Rufus watched me with his head tilted slightly to one side. "You don't have any more idea who's behind this than I do, do you?" he said. 

"Guesses only," I admitted. "We will pursue the matter until we know for certain." I hesitated, then said, "Sir, may I have your permission to speak to General Sephiroth about this investigation?" It would likely trickle down to him anyway, via Veld and Valentine, but I wanted to involve him officially if I could. The only problem was that Rufus had always disliked Sephiroth. 

As I had expected, Rufus frowned. "To what purpose?" 

"He knows as much about enhancement therapy as anyone from the Science Department, and more about military hardware than anyone from our department. And he knows how to keep his mouth shut. Which means we can tell him the whole story. We can't do that with the scientists." Sephiroth and I weren't exactly friends, but I respected the man's intelligence and perspicacity. 

"Very well." Rufus must have seen something in my face, because he added, "I don't _like_ General Sephiroth, it's true, but I do _trust_ him. Within certain boundaries, at least. Someone's trying to take my _company_ away, Tseng. Avoiding that is worth overcoming a little personal distaste." 

Hearing him say that was a tremendous relief. Mere weeks ago, Rufus had been displaying no interest whatsoever in the company's survival. He'd been too wrapped up in what had been going on inside his mind to care. Now it looked like he might be healing, although he might never be quite the same as he had been while his father had still been alive. 

"Rufus," I said quietly—we were alone here, for practical purposes. "May I ask you a question?" 

"A personal one, I take it. Go ahead." 

"You said earlier that you were . . . hallucinating. Can you please elaborate? I need to know if it might put you at risk." 

Rufus shrugged. "Not so much since they took the materia out of me. Sometimes I look in a mirror and see the reflection of someone who isn't there, that's all. The rest . . . that was all Shenlong. And being exposed to too much mako. It doesn't happen anymore. I don't think there's any risk." 

"But you have to touch certain things to be certain they're real," I said. 

"Only important things." 

"I am not—" 

"You _are_ important," Rufus said, giving me a hot, fierce look. "You're my mentor, Tseng, or was that just a game for you?" 

"Not a game," I admitted. "You are . . . one of us. Family. As you said. But sometimes when you look at me, it seems as though you want more." 

"I don't know what I want," Rufus admitted, with a hint of a grimace. "And it may be a while before I sort it out . . . but I promise I'll never order you into my bed, if that's what you're worried about. That's the kind of thing my father would have done." 

So he had been, perhaps, thinking about me in that way. I would need to reflect on that. On whether, if it turned out he did want me, I could accept it. 

"Sir." Cissnei had approached while I was thinking. She had a pair of shoes in one hand, a shoulder holster complete with gun in the other, and a dark blue suit jacket folded over her arm. Mine, all of them, and I accepted them gratefully. "We also found this, along with Mr. Barker's wallet." She held out a driver's license. I didn't recognize the photo, but the name on it was "Lennis Arnarson". One corner of it was bent, and there was a bit of old, dried blood caught in an irregularity in the surface. Which certainly tied up a few loose ends. 

I wondered how long ago the real Lennis had died and Liath had stepped into his place. It might have been quite a while. "Make certain that he's registered officially as a missing person," was all I said, however. The rest didn't need to be articulated until I wrote up my report for Veld. Which was going to be . . . interesting. 

It appeared that we now had another crisis to add to the Planet's irritation at having its lifeblood exploited, but moving from crisis to crisis is the life of a Turk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap, folks. I'm only about eight chapters into the real sequel, so there probably won't be any more until at least the new year. Assuming that none of the characters elbows me in the ribs with another side story. Or insists on my finishing _Night of the Were-chocobo_ first, or something.


End file.
